1963 Timeline 90210
by a-delacroix
Summary: Complete - This is a sequel to '1963'. With the Brain Austin Green connection, a cross-over with 90210 sounded like fun. The story is from Cameron's perspective, so don't worry if you don't follow 90210.
1. Chapter 1

Author's Note:

At the end of Chapter 4 of the story '1963', I saw several possible alternate timelines to write next. I originally thought this would just be an interlude chapter which was not part of the main storyline. But as I started writing it, the scope of what I wanted to do kept growing until it didn't feel like it would fit in a reasonable length chapter. So I have decided to post this as a separate story. To understand what is going on in this story, you will need to read the first four chapters of the original story '1963' first.

With the Brian Austin Green connection, a cross-over story between 'The Sarah Connor Chronicles' and '90210' seemed like an obvious choice. Although to get the timing right this is really more of a cross-over with the new version of '90210' on the CW. If you're not familiar with the new show, don't worry. This story is told from Cameron's perspective and everything you need to know about '90210' will be introduced along the way. I believe I have come up with an interesting way to integrate the terminator characters into the 90210 storyline while still making it a real sequel to my earlier story.

January 11, 2009

1963 – Timeline 90210

Chapter 1

Initialize . . . Initialize . . . Initialize . . .

The red system failure light flashing in my visual array was the first thing I noticed as consciousness slowly returned.

As soon as I was able, I initiated a complete system check. While the five hundred eighty seven items ticked off one by one, I evaluated what the human portion of my body was telling me. I was lying on my side curled up in a fetal position. I could feel a rough, cool surface along the left side of my body. From the smell it had to be dirt and in combination with the breeze I could feel blowing across my body, I had to be outside.

Cautiously, I opened my eyes, but at first I couldn't see anything. It took seventy-three milliseconds before my still barely functional mind realized the darkness meant it was night.

Slowly my memories came back. We had been caught in the initial stages of Judgment Day and a nuke had gone off four hundred twenty-seven milliseconds before the time displacement took place.

A portion of my mind started reviewing my sensor logs of those final seconds in hopes of determining what had happened, as obviously this time displacement event had been different than any I had previously experienced.

I knew there was something else important I should be aware of, but my thoughts were interrupted by systems check number two hundred seventy-three. My GPS unit had passed its check and locked on the first satellite.

This was my first conclusive sign that something was seriously wrong. The constellation of GPS satellites didn't go online until 1993. If I had reached the 1977 target date, my GPS receiver should be showing 'no data' just like it had back in 1963.

Almost before I completed that thought, I received a time hack from the satellite giving the current time as 3:47 AM, Tuesday, September 23rd, 2008, which was eleven hours, twenty-six minutes, fourteen seconds after the time we had used the time machine in the secret room at the uniform supply warehouse. Somehow, instead of moving us thirty years into the past, we had been thrown very slightly into the future instead.

Then several things seemed to happen almost all at once. First, my internal GPS receiver locked on four additional satellites and triangulated my location to be in the foothills on the northern edge of Beverly Hills one block east of Benedict Canyon Drive and a good thirty miles north of my starting point in Long Beach. Second, my radar system passed its self-check and I sent out a lower power pulse which showed nothing within forty feet of my location except flat ground. Third, the 'us' in my previous thought registered and together with my radar results made me wonder where John and Sarah were. I had no idea how long I had been unconscious, but it seemed unlikely it would have been significantly longer than for them and even if it was, they wouldn't have simply left me laying out here in the open. So where were they? Fourth, if a series of nukes had gone off in the L.A. Basin over the last twelve hours, why wasn't I detecting anything about it?

Knowing that I wouldn't get any answers just lying there, I adjusted my visual receptors to their maximum gain and climbed slowly to my feet. Two of my three active laser gyros failed their initial self-check and my equilibrium was a little wobbly until I brought two backup units online. As I started scanning the area, I began a recalibration sequence on the two failed gyros and the other seven components which had also failed their initial self-checks.

Looking around, I found myself near the center of a large formal garden with a sprawling mansion at one end and a swimming pool complex at the other. The spot was high enough in the foothills that I could see the lights of the L.A. skyline stretched out below me. Then looking off to the east I could see the new moon just climbing above the tree line. It looked perfectly normal with no sign of lights in its northern hemisphere. The lights in L.A. and the lack of lights on the moon clearly signaled that the time displacement field and its interaction with the near simultaneous nuke had thrown me more sideways than forward or back. I was lost in some parallel timeline.

But if I was lost in this unknown version of the planet Earth, where were John and Sarah? Had they been deposited in this same world, but just a different location? Or had they ended up somewhere else entirely? Was I stranded here alone?

I had been standing there scanning the surroundings and pondering my situation for 8.73 seconds when the area was abruptly flooded with light. Someone or some automated system must have detected my presence or more likely the arrival of the hard-to-miss time displacement bubble and had switched on a bank of security lights on the back of the house and a second set down at the pool house.

Almost immediately I spotted a man's silhouette at a glass door set into a whole wall of glass on the backside of the house. The door opened and the man came striding across the broad terrace which separated the house from the formal garden.

"Who's there?" he called.

I quickly ran a voice analysis subroutine and it came back with an estimated age of 15 – 21. This was quickly reinforced when he stepped under the security lights. He was wearing only a pair of blue silk boxers and the lean, athletic physique I could see confirmed the youthful age estimate.

I spent the next one hundred twenty six milliseconds deciding how to proceed. I could run, but I would need to acquire clothes before being able to move about freely. I could reach the guest house down by the pool before him and probably find some clothes and still get away before he could confront me. But I still needed to gather information from somewhere about this world before I could figure out what was the best course of action. And talking to this guy would be as good as anyone else.

"Cameron," I called back as I started to move towards him.

As we got closer, he had to have been able to tell I was naked, but he seemed nonplussed by the situation, as though it had happened to him before. We walked steadily towards each other and as we got closer I could see his eyes checking me out, but it didn't cause any hesitation in his stride.

He reached the bottom of the eight broad stone steps leading down from the terrace into the garden and had taken ten steps out into the grass before we reached each other. We paused with four feet, eight inches separating us.

I performed a quick scan of his face and ran it through my facial recognition subroutine. He had black hair, blue eyes, a chiseled chin, and stood six foot two, but I was certain we had never met before.

He, in turn, looked me up and down a couple of times and then fixed his gaze on my face. After seven seconds he asked, "Who are you and why are you standing in my backyard naked?"

I pondered what to say for a moment and then decided on the truth. I had learned that most people would think I was crazy or lying, but either way it tended to throw them off-balance and gave me an advantage. Besides, sometimes it was just fun to watch them squirm.

"I am a killer robot and I just arrived via a time machine, as you can see by the mark my arrival left." I paused to point at the spot where the time displacement bubble had ripped out a perfectly circular five foot diameter patch from the otherwise immaculate lawn. "Sorry about the damage."

He stared at the lawn for twelve seconds before turning back to me.

"So, you're from the future?" he asked with no fear in his voice and more than a hint of mirth.

"Well, yes and no. I will be created up in the future, but I just arrived here from eleven hours, twenty-eight minutes in the past. This time and place was not my destination as I was aiming for 1977, but there was a nuclear explosion just as I was starting out and it seems to have thrown me significantly off-course."

He nodded as though he understood or perhaps he was just humoring the naked girl.

"Where is your time machine?"

"It is back where I started from as only an energy bubble is actually transferred through time. And after the nuke, I guess the time machine is just a cloud of ionized particles now."

"So, you're stranded here?"

I gave a nonchalant shrug, "For the moment."

He gave a pointed glance down at my body. "And you're naked because?"

"Only living tissue can go through the time displacement field."

"I thought you said you were a robot."

"Only on the inside," I abruptly realized I was enjoying this conversation and grinned. "Plus being human on the outside made my original mission of infiltration and assassination much easier."

"Original mission? So what is your mission now?"

"I was reprogrammed to protect mankind from the future robot overlords. But then I developed freewill. So now, while I still try to protect mankind, it is because I want to do it, instead of because I have to do it."

"Will you protect me?"

For just a moment I felt my human heart start to beat faster and it wasn't supposed to do that as the pacemaker circuitry hadn't altered its signal. "Are evil robots trying to kill you?"

The young man laughed. "No, there are merely a few ex-girlfriends who stare daggers at me."

Suddenly a shiver ran through him and I could see goose bumps forming across the upper half of his body. In response he crossed his arms tightly across his chest and tucked his hands under his armpits.

"Aren't you cold?" he asked.

Before responding I noted the pre-dawn air temperature was sixty-four degrees. Factoring in the eight mile per hour breeze gave a wind chill factor of fifty-nine degrees.

"No, I am using twenty-three watts of excess power from my fusion power source to maintain my core body temperature at ninety-eight point seven degrees. I will be quite comfortable for an indefinite period of time at this air temperature."

He stared at me for nineteen seconds, but obviously didn't spot any tell-tale signs that I was feeling cold like him. From the look in his eyes, I doubted he believed my story anymore now than when our conversation first began. I wasn't certain if I was disappointed or happy with that interpretation.

"Well, it is a little too cold out here for my tastes. How about we move this conversation indoors?"

I nodded. While I might not be cold, I would need clothing to move around unnoticed and they weren't going to magically materialize while we stood out here on the lawn.

"Yes, that would be nice." I stuck out my hand, "We haven't really been introduced. I am Cameron Miller."

He stared at my hand for 6.7 seconds, looking at it as though it might bite, before slowly clasping it, "Excuse my manners. I'm Ty Collins."

His hand felt cold in my own warm hand. He gave my hand two firm shakes and then continued to hold it for 4.3 seconds, which was 2.1 seconds longer and 2.5 standard deviations more than average, based on my seven years spent living among and observing humans.

After releasing my hand, he quickly tucked his back under his armpit, turned in the direction of the house, and then paused for me to step up beside him.

As we started walking, I added his name and picture to the list of things I was querying about on the internet. It was nice to still be in a place where I could internally access the wireless internet, after all the time I had spent in pre-internet 1963 or in timelines without anything like a wireless network. In those places it was like having half my mind inaccessible or maybe like losing an arm or a leg.

As soon as I had been able to make a connection, I had started searching for information on John and Sarah. Unfortunately, John Connor and Sarah Connor were extremely common names and I got literally thousands of hits on them individually. Even searching for them together, I still got hundreds of hits, none of which had yet looked promising. For a moment I thought Skynet had gotten at least one thing right; if everyone had a unique barcode, it would make searches like this a lot easier and more fruitful.

'Ty Collins' was almost as common as Sarah or John Connors, but once I added 'Beverly Hills' to the search string, I quickly found relevant hits. Ty Collins was sixteen years old and a sophomore at West Beverly High. He was a member of to the drama club. In fact, I found several mentions in the school newsletter as well as several local papers about him being the male lead in the school play, 'Spring Awakening,' opening on Friday night.

By the time we had climbed the steps up to the terrace and started across it, I had accessed the website for the Broadway version of the play. When we reached the door, I found myself lightly humming the chorus to 'Bitch of Living' from the music video on the site. After we stepped inside and Ty had pulled the door closed, he stopped and stared at me.

"Cameron, where did you hear that song?"

I paused in my humming, although the refrain continued to play in my head. "You're doing 'Spring Awakening' Friday night, right? I just accessed the website for the Broadway version and downloaded the song."

Ty looked at me for a minute and then grinned. "Okay, I think you just gave yourself away. You must go to West Beverly. And you must have first started there when the school year began three weeks ago. If you had been there last year, I am sure I would remember you. So who put you up to this? Adrianna? It seems like her kind of stunt."

I shook my head. "I don't know any 'Adrianna'. I'm 'robot girl', remember?" I paused to tap the side of my head, although technically my data transceiver was located in my upper thorax. "I am hardwired with internet access. I just searched on your name and found an article talking about the play."

He snorted, "You haven't shown me anything to prove you aren't just a beautiful naked girl who has done a little research on me. If you really are a robot girl, it is time for you to do something which will definitely prove it."

For a moment I allowed my face to go totally vacant. John always said doing that in combination with a cold, menacing tone of voice scared the hell out of almost everyone. So I assumed the old terminator persona when I responded, "Sorry, if I did something to conclusively prove that I am a robot, I would have to kill you."

Then I allowed some warmth to return to my face and, grinning, I continued, "Besides, life is always more fun if there is a little mystery involved."

At my first comment, Ty's eyes had widened and he had taken an involuntary half-step back, but at my second, a small smile quirked the left corner of his mouth.

However before he could respond we were interrupted by a woman's voice from the hallway off to my left.

"Ty, what is going on? It's a school night. What are you doing up at four in the morning?"

From the speech patterns and voice analysis, I estimated the woman's age to be in the forties. For some reason the realization this woman probably wasn't Ty's girlfriend was oddly pleasing.

"Mom," Ty began. "We have a visitor."

Before he got any further, a woman entered the far side of the room wrapped in a floor-length red Chinese robe with a yellow dragon swirling down its left side. Immediately, I zoomed in my vision on her face and started the facial recognition subroutine. It spent an inordinately long time processing, as though it had received data it was having trouble quantifying.

I had just started a diagnostic on the subroutine when the woman's progress across the room came to an abrupt stop. I assumed it was in response to finding a naked girl standing in the living room with her son. However when she spoke, I discovered I couldn't have been more wrong.

"Mo . . .," she began before stopping in mid-word. "Cameron, is that really you?"

And just as she stopped speaking, my facial recognition software overlaid an image of a seven-year-old girl on her face.

"Lisa?" I asked perhaps more surprised then I had ever been in the five years since my neural network had last 'awakened'.

Standing before me was my fully grown daughter. Assuming she had lived straight through the years since I had last seen her in 1971, she would be forty-five now. I was trapped in a body that seemed destined to look permanently sixteen and I had been in operation for a little over nine years and sentience off-and-on for most of the last seven, yet standing before me was my suddenly forty-five year-old daughter.

"So you two know each other?" asked Ty.

I was the one with the super fast, computer powered mind, but it was Lisa who recovered from her shock first.

"Yes, Ty, this is your cousin, Cameron, from San Antonio, Texas. She is going to be staying with us for awhile," Lisa answered, as she started moving across the room to where Ty and I stood.

"Cousin, huh?" Ty said, taking another appreciative glance at my body. "Well, I think you are going to fit right in with the Beverly Hills scene."

I heard his voice, but it was like a distant echo as my neural pathways tried to reconfigure to accept this sudden revelation. What were the odds that I would arrive in an alternate timeline and the second person I would meet would be my daughter? And then a few more artificial neurons fired and I realized the first person I had met was my sixteen year-old grandson. A grandson. Suddenly, I think I understood a little of the expression on Sarah's face when the seven year-old Lisa and I had arrived from the past.

My mission had never been to impersonate a scientist, so my physics knowledge was limited. I had only rudimentary knowledge about the concept of the multiverse. Supposedly, an infinite number of timelines existed in parallel. Many of them would be the same except for the most minute of details. Perhaps as a result of the nuclear explosion a whole new plethora of timelines had appeared. And perhaps a version of me had ended up in all of them. And so perhaps it wasn't impossible that in one of them the first people I would meet would be my family.

As I stood there still frozen in place in the most robotic of manner, Lisa reached me and swept me up in a hug. After a moment whatever spell I had been under finally broke and I brought my arms up and wrapped them lovingly around my daughter. We held the hug for 8.3 seconds before Lisa pulled back and held me at arm's length.

"You haven't changed a bit," she said, so quietly I am certain I was the only one who could hear her.

I returned her gaze and took in the woman before me. Lisa now stood three inches taller than my own five foot six. She still had the light brown hair she had inherited from Sarah, although I could detect the subtle hints of artificial colors used to hide a scattering of gray hairs. Fortunately, her face only held the faintest hints of lines and she could still easily pass for mid-thirties. Even through the emotions playing across her face I could see the underlying strength, grace, and beauty. Lisa had grown up well.

"It is so good to see you," I responded, and for Ty's benefit I tweaked my vocal subroutines to incorporate just the faintest hint of a Texas twang, as might be expected in an emotional situation. And meeting my suddenly middle-aged daughter certainly qualified on that front.

"And I see you are still up to your old stunts," Lisa answered, having in some way needed to acknowledge my complete lack of attire. "Let's go back to my room and I'll find you something to wear while we talk."

Lisa draped her arm across my shoulder and then turned us in the direction from which she had originally appeared. We hadn't moved more than three steps when we were interrupted by Ty.

"Mom?"

Lisa paused and looked over her shoulder at her son. With a little 'you better listen to your mother' tone in her voice, she said, "Ty, you have to get up for school in less than three hours. Go back to bed. We will discuss things in the morning."

I also had looked over my shoulder at him. I could see he wanted to say more, but he must have seen something in Lisa's eyes for slowly he nodded and turned to head off in the opposite direction.

"Good night, Ty," I said quietly. He glanced back briefly and a flicker of a smile crossed his face.

Lisa gave me a small nudge and we headed toward the hallway that led to what I assumed was her bedroom.

As we walked, neither of us quite ready to speak, we passed several recessed niches filled with art. Knowledge of art had never been a part of my original programming. And since I had become self-aware, it hadn't suddenly become some secret passion. Still, when Lisa had been six, I had taken her to the Los Angeles County Museum of Art and therefore I had spent some time on preparatory research. And it was based on this research that I recognized the painting in the first niche was a Monet, one of the many from his water lily series. It had to be worth ten million, minimum. And then in the next niche was a Cezanne. And in the third and final niche was another landscape, this time by Edouard Vuillard. Lisa seemed to have developed a taste for expensive French Impressionists.

Passing through a wide set of double doors, we entered a large bedroom suite. Several smaller works of art adorned one side wall, but the room was dominated by a large family portrait above the bed. It must have been painted roughly seven or eight years earlier as Ty looked eight or nine years old. Lisa looked relatively unchanged and was dressed in something almost approaching business attire with a medium gray skirt and a matching blazer over a conservative white blouse. On the opposite side of Ty from her stood a man I didn't recognize, but who must have been her husband. He had a handsome face and was wearing a dark, expensively cut suit. He looked five to ten years older than Lisa.

Lisa didn't pause, but headed to a door in the far wall that probably led to the dressing room. I gestured towards the painting over the bed.

"Your husband?" I asked.

She nodded, "Paul, Paul Collins. He is in Paris on business this week."

Lisa dropped her arm from where it still rested on my shoulder and proceeded on through the other door. In a moment she reappeared with a large white terry-cloth robe. I shrugged it on and almost felt like I was drowning in it. The sleeves hung down passed the tips of my fingers and the bottom hem dragged on the carpet.

Lisa had moved over to the bed and straightened the comforter before turning to look at me.

"Sorry," she began, as she took a seat on the bed. "The robe belongs to Paul and he's six-four." She paused to pat the bed beside her. "Let's talk and then I'll find you something more appropriate to wear."

Pulling up the sleeves and the hem of the robe, I made my way over and sat next to my daughter. For a moment I just sat there. There was so much to talk about it was difficult to figure out where best to begin. Some of my old programming was still active in the back of my mind and it was shouting that my primary mission was to find John and ensure his safety. But I knew this moment had to be about me and Lisa, John would have to wait until later. However even reducing the scope to the two of us left so many things needing to be said, I was lost on where to begin.

Lisa didn't seem to have the same problem. Or perhaps she had rehearsed this encounter in her head a thousand times before.

"You know for a long time I hated you for just leaving me as a child and then never returning," she began quietly. "I was afraid that you had died. Or even worse, that your stupid 'mission' was more important than me."

I saw tears glistening in her eyes and pulled her into my arms, glad I hadn't already blurted out my need to locate John.

"I'm sorry," I said as I started to rock us. "It is the timeloops. For me, it has only been fifteen hours, twenty-four minutes, eighteen seconds since I left you back in 1971. I had intended to return within hours of my departure, but somehow I ended up here instead. I'm sorry."

Lisa pulled slightly away from me and wiped at her eyes. "Well, Mom, I see some things like your fixation on numbers haven't changed." She paused for a moment and a wistful expression crossed her face. "As the years went by, it became harder and harder to believe you really were a part human/part machine time traveler and it wasn't all just the fantasy of an abandoned little girl. But seeing you now, it is suddenly all so real again."

"I'm sorry," I found myself repeating yet again. Then wanting to learn more about her, I continued. "Please, tell me a little about your life." I gestured with my hand, taking in the room and by inference the entire surrounding estate. "You seem to have done very well for an abandoned little girl."

Lisa must have read something in my eyes. She smiled as she answered. "Well, I do at least have you to thank for all of this."

"Me? I certainly didn't leave you that much money. I assumed this was Paul's."

Lisa shook her head. "No, it is mostly my money. And it is all due to the little mantra you taught me. Remember? IBM, Microsoft, Dell. . ."

Of course, I suddenly remembered and joined her in repeating the rest. "Wal-Mart, Berkshire-Hathaway, Iomega, Amazon, Google."

Lisa giggled and for a moment I could see the seven-year-old girl I had last seen only hours earlier. "Mom, I always remembered that and as soon as I started working part-time jobs in high school and college, I began investing. I accumulated my first million by the time I was twenty-four and passed ten million by the time I was twenty-seven. My spectacular performance got noticed and I was invited to join the Beverly Hills investment firm of Brewer, Collins, and Walsh. The titular 'Collins' was Paul's father, Charles. Anyway, I ended up becoming an 'investment agent to the stars' taking a percentage of their profits in addition to managing my own accounts. Of course, eventually I had to branch out beyond the items in the old mantra and expand into other areas like real estate."

"And Paul?" I asked.

Lisa gave a small shrug. "We worked together at the investment firm. And in the early years we seemed to work eighteen hours a day. Sometimes when you are together all the time, things just develop. I still remember how you said it was the same way with you and Dad."

Since she had brought him up, this seemed like a good time to pursue the topic and hopefully quiet the little voice screaming in the back of my mind.

"Do you know anything about John and Sarah? In the timeline I just came from, nuclear bombs were going off all around us when we departed from 2008 via the time machine. We were headed to 1977 together to try and stop Skynet, but somehow I ended up here instead. And I arrived alone, I have no idea what happened to John and Sarah."

Lisa shook her head. "I have no idea what happened to the version of John and Sarah who were with you." She must have seen the disappointment in my face, as she quickly continued. "But I do know about the John and Sarah of this timeline and their lives are a lot different then what I remember you telling me in my childhood."

"Yes?" I prompted finding myself surprisingly eager to hear about the John of this timeline. After the last month spent in close proximity with the John of my timeline, I have to admit my feelings for him had grown beyond just the abstraction that he was Lisa's father. There had been many times in the last five years when I had found myself wondering what I had felt towards him before the plasma rifle incident had reset my emotional matrix when Lisa had been two. Now, when an inkling had started to form, we had once again been torn apart.

"I guess I might as well get the biggest bombshell out of the way first," began Lisa. "Terminators never tried to kill Sarah."

"What?" came rushing out of my mouth before my superfast computer brain even began to think.

"Terminators never tried to kill Sarah before John was ever born. 1984 came and went without any 'Sarah Connors' from the phone book being killed."

"But," I responded, as the implications rippled through my neural network. "If the terminator didn't show up, then John's father, Kyle, wouldn't have shown up either. So John wouldn't have been conceived or born."

Lisa nodded. "He wasn't, or at least not then. John wasn't born until eight years later."

Everything was different in this timeline, I realized. If there hadn't been a terminator in 1984, then there wouldn't have been one ten years later either. Everything was different.

"Then who is John's father?" I asked.

Lisa sighed. "I was studying at Radcliffe in Boston in 1984. It wasn't until years later when I returned to L.A. that I remembered your story about Sarah and I set out to track down what information I could about her. That was when I discovered there had never been a 'phonebook killer'. And for a time it made me even doubt some of my memories about you and your stories of terminators, Skynet, and Judgment Day.

"Eventually, I had to take the same approach the terminator in your stories used; I worked my way through all of the 'Sarah Connors' in the phonebook. And I didn't find her, as it turns out by the time I started looking she was already married and had changed her name.

"Things hung in limbo for a long time. Finally, in 1997 when Ty was five and neither he nor my career needed my full attention, I started searching for Sarah again. This time I enlisted a private investigation firm to do the looking. It took them less than a week to locate her and it turned out she was living barely eight blocks from here. It is almost surprising our paths hadn't crossed at some social event or simply out on the streets."

"She lives here? In Beverly Hills?" I asked.

Lisa nodded. "Yes. Actually, we are now good friends. We play tennis every Tuesday afternoon." She paused to glance at the clock on the bed's nightstand. "In fact, we are playing in just over ten hours."

"And John?" I asked.

"Turns out he was born in 1992 and is sixteen just like Ty. Which leads to one of those really bizarre results of time travel – my grandmother, Sarah, is exactly the same age as me and my son, Ty, is exactly the same age as his grandfather, John. Of course, since the terminators never showed up to start the timeloop, we are left with an 'effect' happening without a 'cause'." Lisa reached over a clasped my hand. "But maybe that's why you have shown up now."

I tried to figure out what was going on. Obviously, Lisa remembered me as her mother, so I had been back in 1963. And if I was back in 1963, then so had been the resistance fighters. So there had been a Skynet and a Judgment Day at one time in this timeline. But then something must have changed things such that Skynet was never created and it never sent terminators back to kill Sarah or John. But if Skynet had never been created then I wouldn't have been created either. So I couldn't have gotten together with John and ended up back in 1963 giving birth to Lisa. Since I seemed to be the wild card in this version of the timeline, did it mean I had to get together with the John of this timeline and then go back to 1963 to give birth to Lisa again to close the timeloop? The whole situation was too complicated to figure out without some serious time to think things through.

My mind circled back to the question I had had earlier, which defined the other end of this timeloop. If Kyle Reese hadn't gone back in time to become John's father, then who was his father?

"Lisa, who is John's father?" I asked again.

"Mom, remember how you told me Sarah had been waitressing when the first terminator tried to kill her?"

I nodded.

"Well, in 1984 she had been a waitress at a 'Big Jeff's' in South Pasadena. But a couple years later she switched to working in a small coffee shop across the street from West Beverly High called 'The Peach Pit' figuring the tips would be better in Beverly Hills than in Pasadena. It was while working there that she met her future husband, David Silver. They were married in 1988 and, as I said, John was born in 1992."

I sat there trying to absorb everything Lisa had just told me. It was still 2008 and John was still sixteen – just in this timeline he had been born eight years later rather than using a time machine to jump forward eight years in time. It seemed the 'Time Gods' wanted John to be sixteen in 2008, one way or another.

"So Sarah and John really live only a few blocks from here?" I asked inanely, as my mind still tried to pull the facts into some logical order.

"Yeah," answered Lisa. And her thoughts were at least partly on the same wavelength as mine when she added. "It has been weird watching my father grow up from the age of five. But you can find out for yourself this afternoon, as you are welcome to join me for my tennis match with Sarah. However, the first thing on the agenda is finding you some clothes to wear, as nothing of mine is going to fit or look appropriate for someone your age."

As Lisa finished speaking I took another glance around the bedroom taking in its grand scale and all its expensive furnishings. My life had taken a turn into a lifestyle I had never expected or imagined before.

Then my thoughts drifted to my true situation. Were the John and Sarah of my old timeline also lost somewhere in this timeline? And if they weren't here, what was my purpose? Was I here to guard the John of this timeline from non-existent terminators? I had been in this timeline for 27 minutes, 14 seconds and I had no real idea what I was supposed to do next.

End of Chapter 1

Have a great day!

Duane


	2. Chapter 2

January 18, 2009

1963 – Timeline 90210

Chapter 2

Part 1

It was a beautiful sunny late summer L.A. morning without a cloud in the sky or a hint of smog in the air. Ty and I were walking across the student parking lot on the east side of the sprawling West Beverly High campus. We were headed for the administration offices to complete the task of registering me for classes after Lisa had begun the process the day before.

As we walked, a large portion of my attention was focused on scanning the school grounds with an eye for security. It was best to be prepared in case of trouble, with potential escape routes already worked out in advance. I already knew from earlier conversations with Lisa that West Beverly didn't use metal detectors at every entrance like the old school John and I had attended in Culver City when we had first arrived in 2008 back in my original timeline. Their absence certainly would simplify life with my metallic endoskeleton. And it also meant the lightsaber and Glock hidden in my new Gucci shoulder bag would go undetected. But, on the other hand, it meant other terminators could freely move about the high school campus, too. Of course, I had no evidence terminators were active, or even existed, here, but it was always best to prepare for the worst.

And I also had no evidence whether the John or Sarah from my previous timeline were somewhere in this timeline either. I had placed our prearranged message in the classified section of the L.A. Times with the encrypted phone number, but it wouldn't appear until tomorrow's edition. I had researched back as far as 1977 for a classified ad from them in case the interaction between the nukes and the time displacement field had somehow stranded them further back in time, but so far I hadn't had any luck discovering their whereabouts. So, for the moment, I was stuck here waiting for some sign indicating how to proceed.

"Would you look at that," exclaimed Ty with a snicker, breaking my train of thought.

I followed his line of sight to a green Range Rover parked twenty yards ahead and just a little to the side of our path. There was a guy sitting in the driver's seat and after zooming my vision by a factor of three, I immediately realized it was John.

I had gone the day before with Lisa to her afternoon tennis match and had met Sarah. At first I almost hadn't recognized her with her hair cut short and a body that was definitely showing signs of her age. Oh, she obviously worked out, but she had to be in the twenty-five percent body fat range rather than the four percent of the Sarah I had known. Although when it came down to it, the biggest difference wasn't her hair or her body, it had to be her eyes. The old Sarah I knew had a weariness about her eyes like she had been carrying the weight of world for years and years. This new Sarah laughed and smiled in a way I had never seen with the old Sarah like she didn't have a care in the world. And after experiencing a single day in Lisa's life and then meeting Sarah at the Beverly Hills Country Club, I was beginning to understand how the 'rich and famous' Beverly Hills lifestyle was completely different than our old life where death could be lurking around every corner.

Anyway, getting my first look at the new John, he didn't seem as physically different as Sarah. Oh, his hair was carefully styled to look fashionably disarrayed rather than being actually disarrayed like my old John. And what I could see of his shirt showed he shopped at much higher-end stores than the bargain rack at Wal-Mart as the old John had. But his face itself was little changed from the one I knew, which was a real surprise. Since Kyle had not come back from the future, the John of this timeline had a different father than the John of my original timeline. So with a different father, it was uncanny how little John had changed. And taking in his face I couldn't help but notice the striking similarities to his grandson, Ty. Perhaps the Connor genes were so strong they remained dominant from generation to generation and from timeline to timeline. Still my curiosity was peaked to meet John's father, David Silver.

Then, abruptly, the reason for the snicker in Ty's voice became apparent. A girl's head came into view and from the way it rose straight up from John's lap, well, you didn't need a supercomputer for a brain to realize what she had been doing.

I further zoomed my vision on the girl's face to mark it for future reference. Unbidden by my conscious mind, the outline of a red rectangular box formed in my field of vision around her face. After a couple of seconds the box began to rapidly flash and then red letters formed below: MARK FOR TERMINATION???

As pleasing as I found the thought of answering 'yes' to be, I forced myself to squelch the old terminator circuits buried in my mind. Just because this John had a life that didn't yet include me, didn't mean I could go all terminator on her ass no matter how good the thought made me feel. It took me a moment to realize this was the strongest emotion towards John I had felt since returning from my sojourn in 1963. And right this minute was not the time to contemplate it.

"Why you old dog," whispered Ty fiercely.

I returned my attention to Ty. "What?" I asked.

"That's John Silver and that's not his girlfriend."

I felt my right hand clench tight. I knew I needed to get myself under control before I damaged my human skin. Why did the fact John was with someone besides his girlfriend make the situation in the Range Rover even less tolerable? Carefully I uncurled my fingers and forced my legs to maintain a steady pace in the direction we were headed.

"Do you know her?" I asked.

Ty nodded as he turned his gaze away from the car and looked forward. "Yeah, she's Adrianna Duncan."

"The Adrianna you mentioned the other night?"

"Yeah," He paused for a moment to nod to a couple of guys climbing out of a yellow Corvette before continuing. "She and I dated briefly last year. Since then she has run through guys like water looking for someone to give her what she wants. Looks like Silver is her new target."

"And what is it she wants?" I asked, as I watched the two guys from the Corvette come jogging in our direction. I couldn't help but notice the way their eyes were continually focused on my legs. Of course, with the light pink mini-skirt Lisa had helped me pick out, which barely covered my ass, and the matching three inch heels, they had plenty to look at. My personal inclination had been for jeans and combat boots, but Lisa had said I would never blend in at West Beverly in that attire. And from what I had seen of other girls so far, she had been right. Still, the part of me that wanted to be combat ready was warring with the chameleon part of me that needed to blend in.

Ty gave the two guys a hand gesture that waved them off until later. Then, as we approached the administration entrance, he continued. "Adrianna was a child star when she was a kid. Now, her Mom could give Dina Lohan lessons. So Adrianna is always looking for a connection to her next gig. Or else she is looking for a connection to score some drugs to forget about her mother. Either way with her it is always about her mom."

We reached the building and Ty pulled open the glass door. Inside to the left was a counter with several students already queued up. To the right was a hallway leading back to the offices. Ty led the way over towards the counter and took a place at the end of the line.

As we stood there, I thought about Ty's last comment and wondered what Adrianna wanted from John. Was John going to turn out to be the local drug connection? I couldn't imagine under any circumstances the John Connor who was destined, at least in my original timeline, to save the world being a drug-dealer, but who knew about here.

"So what do you think Adrianna wants from John?" I asked.

Before Ty could respond, an attractive, late-thirties blonde stepped from the hallway leading back into the offices.

"Ty?" she called.

Ty turned to look at her and then stepped out of the line and moved in her direction and made introductions.

"Ms. Taylor, this is my cousin, Cameron Miller, from San Antonio. She is going to be staying with us for awhile. My Mother called yesterday to start the paperwork to get Cam registered so she can go to school here."

The woman extended her hand to me. As we shook, she said, "I'm Kelly Taylor. Sarah mentioned last night that you would be starting today."

It felt so surreal to have this stranger mention Sarah out of the blue that I almost neglected to incorporate a hint of a Texas twang in my response. "You know Sarah Silver, Ms. Taylor?"

She gave a warm smile. "Her husband, David, is my step-brother. We had dinner last night and she mentioned meeting you at the club yesterday." She must have seen something in my expression, as she continued. "Oh, I think you are going to find Beverly Hills is an incestuous little community not unlike a small town anywhere else in America."

Then getting back on topic, she continued. "I have the remaining paperwork we need to take care of back on my desk, as well as a first pass at a class schedule. We can tweak it based on any special interests you have. Once that is done, Principal Wilson would like to have a brief word with you and then I will see that you get to your first class."

Ms. Taylor turned her attention to Ty. "Ty, I think I can take it from here."

Ty leaned close to me and asked in an almost inaudible whisper. "Are you good, oh robot cousin?"

I tilted my head to one side and looked at him for a moment. Then grinning, I answered, "Oh, please, that joke is so the day before yesterday." Tossing in a mischievous wink to leave at least a hint of ambiguity, I continued, "This isn't my first new school. I'll be fine. Go ahead and get out of here."

"Okay," said Ty, grinning in return about our little shared joke from my unexpected arrival in his life. He was already moving towards the door, as he continued. "I'll meet you at lunch and introduce Annie, if you haven't crossed paths with her by then." Then his eyes flicked briefly to the woman standing next to me. "Nice talking to you, Ms. Taylor."

I waved my hand in a small farewell gesture, but Ty was already out the door without a backwards glance. I let my hand fall back to my side and turned to the older woman, who was standing there with an unexpected grin on her face.

"What?" I asked, raising an eyebrow.

"Oh, I was just thinking about my comment about what a small community Beverly Hills is. You did know Annie is Principal Wilson's daughter?"

I nodded. Ty had told me a little about his new girlfriend the previous evening after Lisa and I had gotten home from the tennis game. Well, and after the little side trip we had made to one of the old weapons caches. I had insisted that even though Lisa had seen no evidence other terminators even existed; I still wanted to be prepared. Plus with all the changes in this timeline, I almost needed to convince myself that some version of me had been present in this timeline back in 1963. But the weapons cache was still there and it was even one of the locations with a hidden time displacement generator. Not that I had anywhere to go at the moment and if this timeline truly had a Skynet-free future, I was particularly hesitant about traveling back in time and potentially causing some change which would return my eternal nemesis.

After Ty had disappeared from sight, Ms. Taylor got back to business. "Well, let's get to the paperwork," she said, gesturing toward the hallway leading back into the building. "Were there any particular classes you were especially interested in?"

I gave a casual shrug. "Let's see what you have lined up," I began, stalling for time. With no better course of action apparent, the logical thing seemed to be to get close to the John of this timeline in case he needed my protection. And if I was going to be perfectly honest, I missed what had been slowly developing between us over the last month. So I had hacked the school's database and knew John's schedule as well as all the available course options for sophomores. Hopefully, I could arrange at least a couple of the same classes, but first I needed to know what the woman had already selected.

She quickly escorted me into a small, but comfortable office overlooking the central courtyard of the campus. Several framed degrees were hung on the opposite wall and on the credenza behind the desk was a single 8 x 10 photo of her with a small boy in her arms.

"Your son?" I asked, gesturing to the photo.

"Yes, that's Sammy, the joy of my life," answered Ms. Taylor, as she slid into her chair. Picking up a folder from a stack on the corner of her desk, she gestured towards one of the chairs in front of her desk, as she continued. "Here is the preliminary list of classes I put together."

She slid a printed form across the desk to me. I picked the page up and scanned it. The only overlap with John's schedule was second period Biology. The only easy change I could see that would get me into another class with him was seventh period.

I looked up and tried to put a sincere expression on my face. "Could I substitute a computer class for Spanish? Computers are the future and I would like to learn more. And my Spanish is already very good."

After rotating her computer screen twenty-three degrees, Ms. Taylor pulled the keyboard from the side of the desk and began typing. After thirty-six seconds she looked up with a smile. "Yes, that's doable. Any other changes you would like?"

I glanced back down at the form in front me and appeared to study it. However I already knew there weren't any other simple changes which would get me into more classes with John without it becoming obvious.

"No, I think that's it for now. Will I be able to make other changes at the beginning of the next semester, if I am here that long?"

"Yes," she responded, as she typed a couple more commands. After 7.4 seconds the laser printer on a stand in the corner began printing. As she rolled her chair across to reach the printout, she continued. "Now that the classes are set, what about extracurricular activities? Here at West Beverly, we strongly recommend participating. It helps develop well-rounded individuals, as well as looking good on college applications. Here is a list of available sports and club activities." As she said the last, she pulled a list out of another folder on her desk.

I took the page and quickly scanned the closely spaced, double column list that numbered nearly one hundred. When I had hacked the school computer looking for information about John, the only extracurricular activity I had found listed for him was Lacrosse and that sport was not coed. Part of me wanted to focus strictly on John, but I knew blowing off this list, might raise eyebrows and part of me, as always, felt the need to blend in.

"I am interested in dance. I particularly like ballet, but would be willing to try something else."

For just a moment the woman stared at me with a contemplative expression on her face like my words had triggered some distant memory. Tilting her head to one side, she suddenly asked, "Have we met before? I have the strangest feeling I know you from somewhere."

When Ty had introduced us, I had automatically run a facial recognition program on her. So I knew I had never met her before. Perhaps she was just picking up the familial resemblance between me, Ty, and Lisa. But since she knew we were related, just not correctly how, that didn't feel like the right explanation. No, in a world where time travel was possible, the likely explanation was that we would meet someday in my future, but her past. And if that day was when she had been in high school, she would be rightly confused seeing me still as a sixteen-year-old twenty years later. Still, I made a special note in my memory files that if I ever found myself in the late eighties Beverly Hills, I needed to change my appearance and name to make this memory as vague as possible for her.

I studied her face for a moment and then let my eyes drift up towards the far corner of the room as though I was deep in thought. After 4.73 seconds I turned my gaze back to her and answered with a small shrug. "I don't think so. Why?"

She shook her head. "I don't know. For a moment something seemed to be on the tip of my tongue, but it is gone now."

After pausing for a couple of seconds, she continued. "Now where were we? Oh, yes, ballet. We don't have an organized ballet group here at school, but I can get you the names of several private groups. We do have a synchronized dance team, but they don't start until November. How about the drama club? They are doing a musical right now; however it is probably too late to get you involved other than as a backup dancer in a couple of performances. But the next play, coming up in about six weeks, is scheduled to be another musical." She grinned. "Being located here in the heart of the entertainment district, we have the most active drama club on the West Coast. The club typically does four musicals, three dramas, and two comedies every school year."

I slowly nodded - partially in response to her words and partially in relief that for the moment her potentially troublesome memories seemed to be forgotten. Then I thought about what she had said. The drama club might not involve John directly, but participating in it would give me the opportunity to spend more time with Ty and his friends. Ty might never know I was his grandmother, but I did. And spending time with my family needed to be just as important as my 'mission'. "Yeah, I have never done any acting, but it might be fun."

"Good," Ms. Taylor said. "The woman who runs the drama club is Brenda Walsh. She was my best friend when we were students at West Beverly. As I said, we are all one big family here. Stop back by my office after your last class and I will take you over and introduce you."

As I nodded, I couldn't help but smile. If only she knew, the secret connection between the Silver's and the Collin's made her 'big family' comment even truer than she realized. In fact, between her connection with David Silver and my connection with his son, John, from some perspectives the two of us could be considered family, too. Not, of course, that she could ever be allowed to find out.

"Okay," Ms. Taylor continued. "We are almost done. I just need you to sign this one form and then if you can get Mrs. Collins to sign these other two as your guardian, we will be all done."

I quickly scanned and signed the form. Then I folded the other two and slid them into an inside pocket in my bag.

Ms. Taylor stood up and moved around her desk. "Let's go see if Principal Wilson is free and then get you on your way to your first class. I think you will like Mr. Matthews, who will be teaching your English Literature class."

Part 2

After meeting with the Principal, I arrived ten minutes late for first period. The part of my neural matrix that drove my need to blend in was annoyed at the additional attention this would bring, over and above the fact I was starting three weeks after the semester had already begun. But another part of me realized I needed to find a way to stand out so John would notice me. For this time I might not have a terminator trying to kill him to break the ice like the first time I had met him back in my original timeline at the high school in New Mexico. And after seeing a little of the Beverly Hills lifestyle, he was probably unusually jaded for a sixteen-year-old boy in the same way his secret grandson, Ty, was.

Reaching the door to the classroom, I briskly knocked and then without waiting for a response, I opened it and stepped through. The room contained eighteen student desks arranged in a couple of semi-circles, instead of formal, rigid rows. Each custom-looking desk was equipped with a large, up-to-date flat panel computer monitor recessed in such a way that it didn't completely obscure the student's view forward. On the back wall was the obligatory large framed print of Shakespeare.

"Yes, can I help you?" asked the mid-twenties man leaning casually against the teacher's desk located slight off-center from the surrounding students' desks.

"Mr. Matthews?" I asked questioningly. When he nodded, I continued. "Ah, hi. I'm Cameron Miller. Today is my first day."

"Hello, Cameron. Welcome to West Beverly and to English Literature. I'm sure you're going to be asked to tell a little about yourself over and over today. So, since this is English Literature, how about starting by telling me what's the most recent book you have read."

In addition to memorizing John's class schedule, I had also memorized Ty's. So I knew as soon as Ms. Taylor had shown me my schedule that I would be sharing first period with him. On entering the room I had scanned all of the students' faces and had spotted him at the far end of the second semi-circle near the windows. I had also spotted his new girlfriend, Annie, based on the photo of her I had seen in the Principal's office. Somewhat surprisingly, she wasn't sitting near him but rather more towards the center.

So, I threw Ty a quick wink as I answered Mr. Matthews' question, "'I, Robot' by Isaac Asimov."

Ty couldn't suppress a chortle at this response. He tried to cover it by turning it into a cough, but still managed to draw the attention of everyone in the room.

"Care to explain what you find so funny, Ty?" asked Mr. Matthews mildly. "'I, Robot' is a classic example of 1950's era science fiction and explored completely different concepts than the recent movie version. Many of its concepts like how the assembly lines were turning men into machines and how the industrial-military complex were driving factors in the cold war may seem more relevant to the fifties than our times. But other aspects like bigotry against minorities whether it is racial or against robots is still relevant."

"Sorry, that's not what was so funny," began Ty. "In case you don't know, Cameron is my cousin from Texas. She is staying with my family for awhile. I only first met her two days ago. And since the moment I met her, she has seemed to be utterly fixated on the topic of robots. So when she mentioned a book about robots . . . well . . ."

Mr. Matthews turned to look at me and I could feel that every other pair of eyes were also focused in my direction.

Okay, I'll admit I have, down through the years, read almost everything I could lay my hands on about robots – both fiction and nonfiction. Oh, I knew enough about how I was made that I wasn't looking for details about the mechanics of how robots work or how to repair myself if I was ever severely damaged. No, I was more interested in understanding how I had made the leap to being self-aware. And truthfully, in all my reading about robots and AIs, I had found fiction to be more useful than nonfiction. But the topic is definitely still a work-in-progress.

I gave a casual shrug. "What can I say? I have a fascination with technology. At the moment it is robots. Six months ago it was super-colliders and their potential to create stable mini-black holes which might destroy the planet. Fortunately, at least for the moment, the Europeans can't get their new one up to full power and just yesterday they announced a six month delay while they perform scheduled maintenance.

"But getting back to robots, with progress on various fronts like teaching machines how to walk, improvements in audio and visual recognition, and even their recent progress on the Turing test front, it seems like human-mimicking robots are inevitable and probably sooner rather than later. So I have been reading things to learn about their potential impact on both the personal and societal levels. And it seems like there are more interesting theories and projections in fiction than in scientific journals, or at least the journals that are at a level I can understand."

By the time I had finished speaking, I could see I had lost most of my audience, which had been my primary goal. Oh, I might come out of this with a reputation for being a geek, but I could live with that.

"Ah, thanks, Cameron," answered Mr. Matthews sounding just the slightest bit flustered. "Why don't you take a seat over by Naomi," he continued as he pointed towards a vacant desk by the girl with shoulder-length curly blonde hair, who I had been watching surreptitiously texting on her Sidekick.

Now the girl looked up with an indignant expression on her face. "Hey, why does she have to sit by me? Mr. Matthews, you aren't thinking of making me the 'Beverly Buddy' again, I hope. You foisted that on me two weeks ago when Annie arrived."

"And we all know how well that turned out," I heard Ty say at such a low whisper, I'm sure he never expected it to carry all the way to where I still stood at the front of the class. Of course, my audio sensitivity is at least an order of magnitude better than your average human, so I was certain Mr. Matthews couldn't have heard a thing.

"Well, I hadn't been planning on it," answered Mr. Matthews. "But now that you've brought it up. . . . How are you doing on your current report?"

I didn't completely follow the abrupt change in subject, but with my infrared scanners I picked up a noticeable increase in the temperature of the girl's cheeks.

"Fine," Naomi said, while jamming her Sidekick back into her bag. Then putting a defiantly artificial smile on her face that would have made any robot proud, she turned to me. "Welcome to West Beverly."

End of Chapter 2

Author's Note:

A little chapter to introduce some of the characters. If you watch the new '90210' TV show, I am more or less substituting John Silver for the Ethan Ward character on the show. Not much action in this chapter, but hopefully you still found something to like. The next chapter will ramp things up and we will get some fun Terminator mayhem.

Have a great day,

Duane


	3. Chapter 3

January 25, 2009

1963 – Timeline 90210

Chapter 3

With a garment bag draped over his shoulder, Ty and I were walking out of the school's theater building at the end of the first dress rehearsal for the upcoming play when I spotted Naomi Clark sitting on a nearby bench. She was talking on her phone in a most agitated manner. It hadn't been until lunch that I discovered she was John's 'real' girlfriend, as opposed to Adrianna Duncan, who had been in John's car when we had first arrived at school.

So far my progress connecting with John had been minimal. In neither biology nor computer science had I managed to sit next to him or even talk to him. In fact, he had barely given me a glance when I had been introduced at the start of each class. Unlike New Mexico where I had been able to play the insider and make the first move, here John was the insider, which made my approaching him slightly more problematic – particularly since I knew he was already involved with at least two girls.

Since the direct approach wasn't working at the moment, I decided to turn my attention to Naomi – perhaps I could more easily reach John through her.

Changing my trajectory slightly, I headed over to where she was sitting. Ty, who had been walking beside me, but talking to one of the other guys from the play, ended his conversation and followed me.

Reaching Naomi, I crouched down in front of her. "What's wrong?"

Seeing her up close under the floodlight mounted above the bench, I could easily make out the fear in her light blue eyes.

Putting her hand over the phone's mouthpiece, she looked up and spoke, but more towards Ty than me. "It's Adrianna. She's down in Hawthorne on Cerise Avenue near El Segundo Boulevard. She's in trouble."

"What the hell is she doing down there?" Ty asked. "She disappeared in the middle of rehearsals and Ms. Walsh is really pissed. What's she doing down in Hawthorne?"

Naomi shook her head. "She won't say." Naomi paused for the briefest time before continuing. "She told me she was no longer using drugs, but I can't think of any other reason she would be down there." A desperate pleading tone crept into her voice as she continued. "She's my best friend. We have to help her."

"That's a scary neighborhood in broad daylight let alone at night," Ty answered.

I saw the hesitation in Ty's eyes. Obviously he had enough common sense to not willing walk into a drug deal that could turn extremely ugly.

Then I looked at Naomi and saw the determination in her eyes and face. She would go down there alone, if she had to. I wondered if she would feel the same if she knew John was cheating on her with Adrianna.

"We'll go with you," I stated. With a confident tone, I continued. "There is safety in numbers." Turning to Ty, I said, "You drive."

Ty again hesitated for a moment, but then must have seen something in my eyes and nodded.

Naomi mouthed a 'thank you' as she quickly rose from her seat. She moved towards the parking lot at almost a run as she told Adrianna help was on the way and that she needed to stay on the line.

Reaching the parking lot, we quickly piled into Ty's gun-metal gray H1 Hummer. During the drive to school in the morning, Ty had lamented that he had wanted a Ferrari for his sixteenth birthday, but his parents had insisted on the safety of a Hummer instead. They had swayed to his wishes enough to allow him to replace the stock diesel V-8 engine with a supercharged version of the V-10 from a Dodge Viper. But what had interested me more had been the weight of the doors and the thickness of the glass. Someone, doubtlessly Lisa, had seen to it that the vehicle was fully armored. If terminators ever showed up, Lisa wanted her son as safe as possible. And at the moment that protection would be equally useful against drug dealers. It would just be a matter of convincing Ty and Naomi to wait in the car while I retrieved Adrianna.

There was very little conversation between the three of us during the twenty-five minute drive down to Hawthorne. Naomi stayed on the phone with Adrianna and seemed to swing from calm to hysteric and back at roughly five minute intervals. Ty focused on the road and carefully stayed exactly at the speed limit. I wasn't sure if he held the speed down because he secretly didn't want to reach the destination or because he didn't want to get stopped for a ticket which could have prevented us from getting there in time. Either way, he was definitely listening to Naomi's side of the conversation with Adrianna, as every so often I see his hands clench on the steering wheel until his knuckles turned white.

I meanwhile didn't have time for conversation, as I, too, was focused on the phone call, although in a different way than Naomi or Ty. While they were listening to the words, I was listening to the signal and working to trace the wireless connection to Adrianna's phone. If I could identify her phone, then I could use the system the government had mandated for all recent cell phones to allow their location to be triangulated in an emergency from signal strength measurements for the four nearest cell towers. It wasn't quite as good as having a GPS tracker on Adrianna, but knowing the location of her phone within thirty-five feet was a lot better than nothing.

We were five minutes away when I finally managed to locate her. Now even if her phone call with Naomi got cut off, I could still track her position. Only if the battery failed would I lose the connection.

Immediately in one corner of my field of view I brought up a Google 'satellite view' of the area with our and Adrianna's locations highlighted. Next I brought up a 'street view' at her location in another corner of my vision. The phone's location said she was no longer on the street, but inside of a building. From the 'satellite view' photo I could tell it was a warehouse or a factory of some kind. From the photo in the 'street view' I could just make out the name over the front entrance to be 'Textiles Unlimited'. I almost had a feeling of déjà vu at the similarity to the uniform supply building we had been in when the nukes had started to rain down in the previous timeline.

Then I took a closer look at the map and realized Cerise Avenue dead-ended only half a block north of Adrianna's location. Great, there was only one clear way in or out – straight south two blocks to El Segundo Blvd. Oh, in an emergency it might be possible to cut through some of the intervening parking lots to reach the next parallel street, but from the Google maps, it was impossible to tell where intervening locked gates might be located.

I could have Ty and Naomi wait in the car down on El Segundo, but if Adrianna and I had to run from pursuers, that two blocks might be too far if the pursuers had cars or Adrianna was injured. No, I had best position our escape vehicle a little closer. One block south of Adrianna's position should be close enough and there was a spot where Ty should be able to turn around and park facing south for a quick getaway. That would have to do.

We had come south from Beverly Hills on the 405 and then headed east on El Segundo Boulevard. The nav system in the Hummer was displaying a similar plot to the Google satellite view in my head.

"Okay," I began. "Cerise Avenue is three blocks ahead. You are going to want to make a left. Then you need to go one block and there will be a spot where you can make a U-turn."

Ty moved into the left lane and then glanced at the nav display. "How do you know about going one block?"

"Trust me," I said.

Cerise Avenue was rapidly approaching and Ty didn't have time to pursue his question.

As though he was back taking his driver's test, Ty carefully turned on his turn signal before entering the left turn lane. After pausing for a break in the oncoming traffic, he turned onto the poorly lit side street in this light industrial area.

As the Hummer moved slowly up the street, I pointed down passed the tall privacy fence on the right hand side to the two-story white building about a block and a half ahead. "Adrianna is in that building. Now turn around just ahead and park by the red brick building we just passed."

Ty did as I directed and after pulling up by the curb, he shut off the engine and turned off the lights.

"How could you possibly know which building she is in?" Ty asked, as he looked at me.

I glanced into the back seat and saw Naomi was twisted in her seat. She was staring out through the back window at the building I had indicated while she told the other girl help was almost there.

Leaning closer to Ty, I tapped the side of my head and whispered. "Robot Girl. Remember?"

Straightening back up, I continued in a louder voice. "I need you two to wait here in the car while I go fetch Adrianna."

I was expecting Ty to protest, but it was Naomi who spoke up first.

"What? You want to go in there alone? That's crazy. I thought we were talking about strength in numbers." She paused to glance out the back window again at the building I had indicated, which from this distance was showing no signs of activity. "What can you do by yourself?"

While I was listening to her, a large portion of my attention was focused on weaponry. I still had the lightsaber and the Glock in my shoulder bag, which was currently on the floor by my feet. If I took the bag, I could bring both weapons, but the men I was about to encounter would probably be instantly suspicious about its contents. And with my current attire of miniskirt and high heels, I estimated a ninety-four percent probability I could get within arm's reach of at least one man going with the 'helpless female' approach. And if I could get close to one man, I could just acquire his weapon rather than bringing my own.

I briefly considered bring the lightsaber since I could pass it off as a flashlight and it was stout enough to be an effective club, but again I calculated the 'helpless female' approach gave the highest odds of extracting Adrianna without her being hurt.

Still, even though the Hummer was a block away, something could go wrong and I didn't want to leave Ty and Naomi unprotected.

Momentarily ignoring Naomi's outburst, I reached down into my bag and pulled out the Glock.

"Ty have you ever used a gun?" I asked.

Both Ty and Naomi's eyes got wide.

"Where did you get that?" asked Ty. And then it seemed to click in his head that we had come straight from school. "Have you been carrying that around all day?"

"Of course, I'm from Texas. Everyone carries guns. Now, we don't have time for this. Do you or don't you know how to use a gun?"

Slowly, Ty nodded. "My . . . my Mother insisted I take a gun training course when I turned fourteen. All three of us, my Mom, my Dad, and me go to the practice range one Saturday afternoon every other month. Both my parents said it was best to be prepared for an emergency."

I nodded; although I guessed Lisa was a driving force behind this, just like I suspected she was the reason Ty drove an armor-reinforced Hummer.

Handing Ty the Glock, I had him point out the safety and then eject and reload the clip before I was satisfied he had at least a minimal proficiency.

"Now, wait here and don't use that weapon except as a last resort. If you have to leave without us to avoid trouble, do it. I can get Adrianna out of this alone, if I have to."

"Do you have another weapon?" Ty asked.

I shook my head.

"You seriously want to go in there alone? And unarmed?" asked Naomi, as though the introduction of weapons was suddenly perfectly natural.

"Yes," I answered, looking at her. Then I continued, forcing an evil little grin for both of their benefits, "But I am never truly unarmed. I hold an eighth degree black belt in Taekwondo and I HAVE used my skills before." Of course, I didn't add that I had fought side-by-side with Bruce Lee less than three days earlier from my perspective.

Hoping I had convinced them, I climbed out of the car. Before closing the door, I reiterated one more time. "Wait here, but keep your eyes open. We may need to make a fast getaway."

Easing the door closed quietly, I worked to clear Ty and Naomi from my thoughts. As I walked around the back of the Hummer and moved in the direction of my target, I tried to force myself into the proper mindset. For the moment I wasn't an unstoppable terminator, but rather a helpless party girl. Therefore I added a carefully calculated extra increment to the sway of my hips beyond what was already forced on me by my high-heeled shoes.

It took me two minutes and four seconds to cover the block separating the Hummer from the building. I had to close to within fifty-three feet before I could see the building's main entrance beyond the eight foot tall privacy fence separating the company's parking lot from the street. Then I immediately made out two men loitering just outside the double glass doors. From my prior experience at our old high school, which was now at least four timeline shifts away, I quickly recognized the marks of gang affiliation among their clothing.

Intentionally skewing the output from my third laser gyro by 4.3 percent to give a hint of inebriation to my walk, I made my final approach.

"Hi, boys," I called to ensure they had noticed me. "Where's the party?"

They immediately straightened up. Then when I stepped within range of the floodlights mounted over the entrance and they both got a good look at me, I saw them share a grin.

"The party's right here, sistah," the taller man on the right said, while suggestively grabbing his crotch.

The man on the left, who was only wearing about half as much gold jewelry and who definitely had more intelligent looking eyes, said, "Chill, Jericho. We are supposed to be on lookout."

"I am looking out, Reb. And what I'm seeing is some fine puh-say."

Jericho started to take a step in my direction, but Reb put a restraining hand on his arm. Jericho paused and glanced back at the other man. With a hint of a whine in his voice, he said, "Why should the others have all the fun when there is another piece of fine white ass right here for the taking?"

Reb shook his head. He apparently had a sense of duty, but Jericho was still managing to provide the distraction I needed. Nine more strides and I would be within arm's reach.

"Stop right there," Reb said pointing at me, but he obviously wasn't overly concerned as he didn't drawn a weapon or try to contact the others inside the building. "And tell me what you are doing here."

I added even more slink to my walk and slow my pace only slightly. "I told you already. I want to party. You know," I continued, while carefully lowering my voice to a conspiratorial whisper, "Ah . . . score some drugs."

Suddenly they both stiffened; something about how I had phrased my last comment must have raised a flag. Fortunately, I was already too close for it to make any difference. With two quick, lightning fast punches, they were both dropping unconscious to the ground. It was barely the work of a moment to toss their limp bodies behind the bushings lining both sides of the entrance.

I debated taking their weapons for fourteen milliseconds, but concluded the 'helpless girl' strategy still gave the highest probability of getting Adrianna out without injury. Therefore after removing their clips, I dropped the handguns in the trashcan beside the receptionist's desk just inside the entrance.

The triangulated position of Adrianna's phone was deep within the building. As I made my way back through the brightly lit front offices, I was using my hack into the LAPD's computer system to access their facial recognition database in search of names to go with the two men I had just encountered. If they were in the database, I could look for known associates. This wasn't the main reason I had hacked the police system. No, it was primarily to get early warning if trouble was coming my way. But as long as I already had the connection, I intended to exploit it. A little extra knowledge about my opponents might be the key to getting out of this situation without anyone having to die.

I had almost reached a door, which had to lead into the main part of the warehouse, when abruptly the position of Adrianna's phone began to move very quickly. From what she had said on the phone to Naomi, she had been hiding from the dealers until help arrived. Now, obviously, she must have been spotted. She had covered seventy-five feet, more or less in a straight line, when just as abruptly she stopped. And then six seconds later her phone went dead – not just the phone call being cutoff, but the carrier signal was also completely gone. Either the battery had spontaneously died, someone had removed the battery, or the phone had been destroyed. I calculated the odds of the third option being correct at ninety-eight percent. And if it had been destroyed, either Adrianna had done it by accident or she had been caught and her phone discovered. The odds of her having been caught were only seventy-one percent, but planning for that eventuality was the conservative thing to do.

I didn't break into a run, but I did quicken my pace. If Adrianna had been successfully eluding them for over forty-five minutes, they were probably pretty pissed. I needed to get to them before anything drastic was done.

A pair of swinging doors separated the office from the back warehouse area. I banged through them hard to attract their attention. And since they might assume it was simply Reb or Jericho from out front, I followed it up with a loud call emphasizing my female voice.

"Hey, where's the party?"

I didn't get any immediate verbal response, but with my superior auditory system, I could hear movement both ahead and then off to one side. Since the last position I had for Adrianna was much deeper into the warehouse and slightly off to the left, I moved steadily in that direction. And because this might devolve into a combat situation at any second, I brought my third laser gyro back up to one hundred percent and firmed up my stride.

Like the front office area, the warehouse was ablaze with lights. With my night vision and thermal imaging systems, low light would have given me an additional advantage, but having them clearly able to see how defenseless I appeared was also to my advantage. I couldn't suppress a small smile; I seemed to be seeing special opportunities no matter what the circumstances. There were definite advantages to having a soft feminine exterior to go with my secret enhanced chassis.

To a human ear, the only sound was the steady click, click, click of my heels. But I could still hear movement off to my side as someone moved to cut off my line of retreat. I knew I had to time things out just right. I wanted to be within sight of Adrianna and the main group before the one behind me caught up. Oh, I could easily take out the one behind first, but they would feel more relaxed and in control if they could all see each other.

I had been walking betweens two rows of giant cylindrical bolts of cloth wrapped in brown paper. For just a moment they brought back memories of the warehouse on the waterfront back in Oakland filled with the similar giant cylinder shapes of the pipeline sections. My life had been so different then. I had been only intermittently self-aware. John and I wouldn't make our first real connection until hours later. Lisa was still an unimaginable concept. Yet now, Lisa was in her forties with a son of her own while I was still stuck in high school. How things changed and didn't change!

Clearing the tall wall of rolled fabric at last, I finally spotted a group of people about fifty feet ahead. Several of the men were keeping a look out, but the majority of them were focused on Adrianna. She was struggling in the grasp of two big men who were wielding knives and slowly cutting away at her clothes. In all, I counted eight men in the group in front of me plus at least one or two more behind me. Whatever was going on seemed to be more than just a local corner drug buy gone out of hand.

I was once again about to announce my presence to force their attention away from Adrianna when my thoughts were interrupted by a flashing red box in my vision centered on Adrianna and accompanied by the question 'TERMINATE?'. For some reason just the sight of the girl seemed to elicit that response from some part of my system. Was it some hardwired part of my software's directive to protect John in all situations? Or was it some subconscious response of my mind? Did I even have a subconscious like flesh-and-blood humans? I am not sure of the exact cause, but part of me wanted to ignore all of the heavily armed men and simply wade in and kill her. For a moment it was the scariest feeling - like I could simply lose control of my body and revert back into a killing machine.

I forced myself to count to one billion using only prime numbers to get myself back under control. Fortunately, it only took eighty-three milliseconds.

"Let her go, now!" I said slowly, distinctly with my coldest, most menacing tone. Well, with the coldest, most menacing version of my normal voice. I could have changed my voice to sound so dark and scary you would have thought it had belonged to something that had just crawled out of the grave, but I merely wanted their attention directed towards me without them immediately going for their weapons.

I continued to move slowly forward so they could get a good look at my petite form in the short pink mini and matching heels. I could see them visibly relax, but their attention remained on me. Adrianna was still restrained by two men, but for the moment they were no longer working to remove her clothing.

One man took a half step forward and asked, "How did you get back here?"

I shrugged as I slowly moved forward. "I walked through the front door." I paused for just a second. "Oh, are you talking about Jericho Tyrel with one conviction for grand theft auto and one conviction for armed assault and Joseph 'Reb' Watkins with one conviction for possession of narcotics? Well, after meeting me they both decided they could do with a little nap."

I saw the leader, who my link to the LAPD database now identified as one Samuel 'The Piranha' Salmon, glance passed me before responding in a mild tone. "So, you be a cop or somethin'?"

Two men grabbed my arms from behind just as Salmon finished speaking and he broke into a big grin. I had been aware of their approach from the beginning, but had decided to let them escort me over to the others so they would all be in one nice tight little bunch.

"Or something would be just about right," I answered and couldn't stop my own little grin from forming.

They pulled at my arms viciously, but it wouldn't have done them much good if I had dug in my heels using my nearly four hundred pound mass. But I went along quietly, since it served my purposes. As we walked, I looked over at Adrianna to judge her fitness to run if it came to that. Part of my mind still wanted to flash the 'terminate' message across her face, but I forced it down. There would be plenty of opportunities to deal with her after I had worked my way into John's life. For the moment, helping her and Naomi seemed like the quickest way to reach that end.

Adrianna's white blouse was in tatters. The front clasp of her black bra was undone. The front snap of her gray slacks was open. But I could see a spark in her eyes that said she hadn't simply given up. No, given a chance, she was ready to run. My opinion of her took a half-step up from absolute zero. However she had a long way to go after messing with 'my' John.

When we reached the others, my two captors released me with a brisk shove in the direction of their leader. Making a show of catching my balance, I deliberately brought my right foot down hard and broke the heel of my shoe. Wearing them would just be a hindrance, if it came to a fight and losing the extra three inches they gave me would, hopefully, make me appear even more diminutive.

"Hey, watch it," I said in a perturbed tone while glancing back over my shoulder. "These were my favorite shoes."

As I stepped out of my shoes, Salmon laughed. "I think shoes are about to be the least of your problems."

Carefully maintaining a tranquil expression, I looked up into the leader's face. "What do you prefer I call you, Samuel or The Piranha?"

"Ah, you have done your homework," he answered without addressing my question. "And you don't come across as stupid. So what did you hope to achieve walking in here all by yourself?"

"You seem reasonably intelligent yourself, Oh Man Who Is Named After A Tiny Fish with Big Teeth," I responded with a grin. Then I let the grin slip away before continuing. "Give me the girl and let us walk out of here. There doesn't have to be any trouble."

Salmon shook his head. "I'm afraid I can't do that. She owes Jorge," and here he nodded towards one of the men holding Adrianna, "a lot of money. She can't leave until she pays up either in cash or in trade. So you can wait until we are finished or perhaps, if you are so inclined, you could help her work off her debt. I'm sure the boys wouldn't mind."

I saw the men behind Salmon leer in my direction. Then I felt one of the men behind me put his hand on my right upper arm in a crude approximation of a caress.

Maintaining eye contact with their leader, I casually reached across with my left hand and grasped the man's first two fingers. Then without changing my expression, I squeezed down hard. In the sudden quiet, the 'snap, snap, snap' of bone after bone breaking was clearly audible. I released his hand and the man stumbled back cursing vehemently.

"I don't like people touching me without asking permission first, Samuel."

"Bitch," Salmon said in a low menacing tone. "After we all have had our fun, we are going to mess you up, bad."

Calmly and without haste I made a show of looking at each man in turn, lingering a little longer on the one bent over cradling his ruined hand. Then I turned back to the leader.

"Hmm, ten of you against little old me, you know, those odds hardly seem fair. How about you go scrounge up another dozen men who are willing to die for you; that would even things out nicely. Go ahead, I'll wait." I paused for half a beat. "Or, of course, you could simply give me the girl and walk away. Trust me that would be the smart move." I finished and cocked one eyebrow in his direction.

I could see anger flaring in Salmon's eyes. Apparently it had been a while since anyone had stood up to him. And probably a lot longer since a woman had.

"Well," I continued, putting a touch of menace into my own voice and letting a hint of my eyes' inner glow show through. "Shit or get off the pot."

I was hoping I could egg Salmon or one of the others into making a move against me. If I could quickly and easily damage one or two more, perhaps I could get them to back down without the situation getting totally out of control.

However just then we were interrupted by a loud voice calling out from the direction of the front of the building. "Freeze! This is the police! We have you surrounded! Drop your weapons!"

Instantly, I recognized Ty's voice. I had told him I could handle this and that he needed to wait in the car, but obviously he hadn't believed me and had decided to follow. With one part of my mind I chastised myself for giving him the gun; if I hadn't, he wouldn't have dared follow me in here. Another part of my mind was saying I should have done more to convince him I could handle this on my own. But the biggest part of my mind was reacting to the sudden giant jolt of cold, hard fear. If something had happened to Adrianna during the rescue attempt, well, too bad. I wouldn't have shed too many tears. But Ty was my grandson and some maternal gear shifted in my mind. What if something happened to him? How could I live with myself? How could I tell Lisa? Even on the numerous occasions when John had been in danger, I had never felt fear quite like this.

And now all my careful work was coming apart. I had had them all distracted and with just a little more show of force I might have been able to get them to back down without things escalating to the use of deadly force. But now with Ty's interruption, they were all going for their weapons.

And these guys weren't armed with clubs and nunchucks like during the fight back in 1971. No, these guys had handguns and shotguns. There suddenly wasn't going to be time to be gentle with them. I would have to take them down fast and hard and if some of them suffered kill blows in the process, well, so be it.

Pivoting on my left heel, I immediately threw a reverse roundhouse kick into the two men standing behind me, who were closest to Ty's position at the front of the warehouse. The first man was tall enough that all I could reach was his shoulder, but I hit it with sufficient force to hear bones shattering. Before the man could even begin to scream in agony, the force of my blow threw him into the second man, the one with the broken fingers, and they both tumbled to the floor.

By the time I completed the kick and was back facing 'The Piranha', the man to his left had raised his shotgun for a hip shot in Ty's direction. I knew the odds of the man hitting Ty with that weapon at a range of seventy-five feet were low, but I still wasn't willing to take any chances. Almost faster than I could think, my right hand flashed out and delivered a hammering blow against his trigger hand. The barrel of the gun jerked to the left and then the gun went off. The shotgun's blast caught one of the men restraining Adrianna square in the abdomen at a range of less than eight feet. Without pausing to watch the wounded man feebly grasp at the intestines bulging from his ruined guts, I drove an open-palm Crane strike into the gunman's solar plexus. With the full strength of my hyper-alloy chassis behind the blow, my hand sank wrist deep into his chest before I could stop.

Pulling my blood drenched hand free, I grabbed the barrel of the shotgun just as his hands went slack. Not taking time to reverse the weapon, I slammed its butt hard into the head of the second man restraining Adrianna. The force of the blow caved in the side of his head at least three inches and sent him careening back six feet until he crashed into a tall row of boxes.

By this point the fight had been going on for 6.83 seconds and some of the remaining men had finally realized the real threat wasn't the lone voice off in the shadows, but was me. I was just recovering my stance when several shots were fired almost simultaneously. At least one of them had been targeted at me, as the round from a heavy caliber handgun slammed into my back catching me in my right shoulder blade. Fortunately, that is one of my least vulnerable spots with the nano-fiber layer in my skin backed up by the hard flat metallic plate. The only real effect was that the inertia from the blow twisted my upper body twenty-three degrees. I went with the blow and used the motion to get a better grip on the shotgun. Taking a half step to my right to keep my body between Adrianna and the man who was still pointing a gun in my direction, I pumped the shotgun and fired at a spot midway between him and the next man nearest him who also had a weapon out although pointed more in Ty's direction than mine. The spray of pellets caught both men in the chest and sent them sprawling backwards.

I was just in the process of pumping the shotgun for the next shot when the man with the smashed hand, who had gone down under the first man I had kicked in the shoulder, surged free and slammed into the back of my knees. Apparently the adrenaline rush of the situation had more than compensated for the pain in his hand.

As a result of the unexpected impact, I went crashing to the ground and the shotgun went flying from my blood-slicked hands.

The nearest available weapon was a .357 Magnum dropped by one of the men I had just hosed with shotgun pellets. Therefore as soon as my hands hit the floor giving some leverage I started to roll towards my left while simultaneously slamming my feet against the man who was tenaciously trying to hold me about the knees. This moved me further away from Adrianna, which was fortunate as the two men still on their feet behind their leader were concentrating their fire in my direction. I took two more hits, one in the left arm and one to the back of my head, while I fought to get my legs disentangled. From somewhere the man at my legs produced a knife and started slashing and stabbing left-handedly at my calves and thighs. The nano-fabric layer kept the knife from going deep enough to do any serious damage to my human anatomy, but the exposed surface layers of skin were quickly weeping blood from numerous lacerations. I was just about to turn my full attention towards the man at my legs when he took a wild round from one of his own people right in the face.

I wasn't about to complain about the first bit of good fortunate that had come my way since Ty's untimely interference. Quickly I rolled towards the weapon, which was still four feet beyond my reach, as rounds continued to pepper around me – some reaching their mark and some pinging off the hard concrete floor. By the time I had the gun in my hand and was able to return their fire, I had taken a total of seven hits, none of which reduced my combat effectiveness. If they were going to slow me or stop me, they were going to need a lot heavier ordnance.

Not wasting time rising, I fired from my prone position on the floor. To ensure they would go down and stay down, I put two rounds into the center of both men's chests. The second man got off one last shot which hit me in the forehead just above my right eyebrow. Of all the knife and bullet wounds I had endured, this was the first one that was a real annoyance. Oh, it didn't penetrate my nano-fiber layer any more than the previous ones, but the gouge it caused in the outer skin started dripping blood into my eye. The vision from that eye went red as I blinked rapidly in an attempt to clear it.

Temporarily shutting down the visual input from my right eye, I climbed to my feet. The only opposition still standing was 'The Piranha'. He looked pale as a ghost as he slowly pulled an eight inch hunting knife from under his jacket.

"What the fuck are you?"

I didn't bother answering, but just swung the gun around and pulled the trigger. And the gun's hammer came down with a dull 'click' on a chamber containing an already expended shell. Sometimes I hate revolvers with their limited six rounds. Apparently, the gun's original owner had fired two rounds before I had used the last four to take down the final two gunmen.

"Well," I responded, tossing the gun away. "It looks like your life expectancy just went up by a few seconds."

He got a firmer grip of his knife and took a half step forward.

I pointedly looked down at his weapon and then looked back up into his eyes. "You don't really believe that is going to any good, do you?" I could see from his expression he knew what I said was true. "Drop the weapon and I will let you live. All I want is the girl. If you had just given her to me in the beginning, I would have let you all live."

I saw his eyes flash to his men sprawled all around him. Every one of them was dead, unconscious, or seriously wound; there would be no help for him there. When his eyes turned back to me I saw raw black hatred. But after a moment he simply opened his hand letting the knife drop to the floor with a clatter. Then with an almost nonchalant gesture, he kicked it away.

With a nod of my head, I said, "So, you are a smart boy after all." Then I took two quick steps forward and snapped a fast jab to his face. Oh, I pulled my punch so it didn't instantly kill him, but having already killed or maimed all of the others, I didn't see any point in leaving the last one mobile to cause trouble before we made our departure.

Before his body had collapsed limply to the floor I had already turned my attention to Adrianna. She was huddled on the floor in the same spot where I had originally seen her. One hand was clutching the tattered remains of her blouse closed while she stared up at me with wide blue eyes.

I walked over to her assessing as I went that she had come through the battle uninjured and held out my hand. "We need to get out of here, now."

At first she gave no response but simply continued to stare at me. Finally, after eight seconds she spoke in a whisper and unwittingly echoed The Piranha's last words. "What the fuck are you?"

Following her gaze I glanced down at myself. The pale pink of my dress was now spoiled by fist-sized splotches of red from where I had taken three rounds – one just above my right breast and two in the abdomen. My left arm was covered in blood from mid bicep to elbow from where a bullet had grazed my arm. My right hand was coated with blood up passed the wrist, although at least this time the blood wasn't mine but rather from when I had jammed my hand into the chest of the man with the shotgun. And my legs were red from just above my knees almost to my ankles from knife lacerations. Thanks to the nanofiber layer in my skin, none of these wounds had significantly damaged the human part of my body, but I could see how they must be freaking Adrianna out.

Leaning forward, I switched to my less bloody left hand and grabbed Adrianna's free hand and jerked her to her feet. "I'll explain later. Right now we have to get out of here before the cops show up."

The mention of cops seemed to energize her. However before she moved three steps I pulled her to a stop.

"Do any of these men know your full name or where to find you?" I asked.

She just stared at me, her attention focused on my blood-filled eye.

I gave the hand I was still holding a sharp shake and then repeated my question. "Do any of these men know your last name? After what's happened here tonight, we can't have any of them tracing you back to your home."

Some semblance of understanding passed through her eyes. Unconsciously tugging at the strap on her shoulder bag, which she had somehow managed to retain through everything, she took a moment to look at the bodies scattered around. I thought she was going to freak out again, but after six seconds she nodded her head towards one of the men who had been holding her down – the one who had taken the shotgun blast to the abdomen. "Only him," she said, her voice gaining a little more strength than it had displayed earlier.

With part of my attention I scanned the man who Salmon had identified as Jorge. He was still alive, but I pegged his life expectancy at less than fifteen minutes unless he got immediate medical attention and even then I put his odds of survival at less then forty percent. Since another part of my mind was monitoring both the police radio bands and their internal intranets, I knew the events in this building hadn't yet reached outside attention. Therefore the odds of the man surviving were less than three percent. This was low enough to be acceptable without requiring any more 'active assistance' on my part. I had done enough killing and Adrianna didn't need to witness any more violence either.

"Okay," was all I said before getting her moving again in the direction from which I had come and in the direction where Ty was, hopefully, waiting. As we walked, I couldn't stop a series of alternate scenarios from playing through my mind. I had tried to retrieve Adrianna with the minimum of violence, but everything had gone to hell as a result of Ty's interference. But inside I 'knew' it probably would have ended up in the same place anyway. There must have been some way I could have handled this differently. Okay, these guys were drug dealers and they all had criminal records, but they weren't Skynet minions. There should have been some way to get Adrianna away from them without going into full terminator mode. Oh, I could blame the rapid escalation of the situation on Ty's interruption, but it wouldn't be true. No, with hindsight, from the minute I had broken my heel, I had been heading down a path that could only have led to a fight.

I was still chastising myself about how easily I had slid down the slippery slope to where killing humans was acceptable when Adrianna and I reached the tall stack of cloth that obstructed my view of the location where Ty should be waiting - or maybe not waiting. If he had had any sense he would have retreated to the car or at least to the front office when the gunfire had started. But if he had the courage to follow me into the warehouse, he probably wouldn't have backed off when he thought I was in serious trouble. Actually, with the shooting over, I was almost surprised he wasn't at least peeking around the corner.

Then abruptly I discovered why he wasn't visible and for a second I thought my incredibly strong knees were going to fail me. Ty lay sprawled on the floor eighteen feet away. Naomi was kneeling on the far side of him and both her hands were pressed tightly against his abdomen. The dark red color of blood was visible on her hands and Ty's pale green shirt. Somewhere during the battle, Ty had taken at least one hit.

Before I could get over my shock, Adrianna shrieked out 'Ty' and went racing forward. I knew the two of them were starring in the school play together, but her reaction seemed almost too strong. At least until I remembered Ty's comment from the morning about how he and Adrianna had dated for awhile. Perhaps she still had feelings for him and Ty had never said who had broken off their relationship.

Trying to force my panic down, I quickly rushed after Adrianna and then slid to my knees next to her on the opposite side of Ty from Naomi.

"Ty," I said, quickly running one hand across his forehead. While part of my mind collected sensory data on his condition, another part of my mind drew strength from the physical contact. "Ty, we are going to get you help. Just hang in there."

At the sound of my voice, or perhaps in response to the deathgrip Adrianna had on his hand, Ty opened his eyes a little and squinted up. "Addy, are you okay?" When Adrianna nodded, he turned his attention towards me. "And you, Cam? There were so many gunshots and you were standing right in the middle of things." Then his eyes widened further as my own appearance must have registered.

"Yeah, I'm okay. Robot Girl, remember?" I said, trying to keep my voice light.

The vital signs I collected where different than I had expected. His heart rate was elevated at 147 beats a minute, but his blood pressure at 128 over 83 was much higher than I would have expected after a gun shot wound to the abdomen. If he was losing blood at a significant rate, it would be a lot lower. Not too much blood was visible where Naomi still maintained a firm pressure, but I had been afraid of internal bleeding. So if his blood pressure was holding firm, then no major arteries had been hit.

Lifting my hand from his forehead to take a closer look at his injury, I couldn't help but notice the bloody palm print I left behind. While part of my attention was focused on the present, another part was trying to figure how we were going to handle things when we got to a hospital. If I walked in with Ty, the emergency room staff was going to take one look at me and think I was the primary concern. How was I going to get out of there without letting them examine me or risk revealing my true nature? But getting Ty medical attention had to remain my primary concern.

Pushing those issues to the back of my mind, I gently reached my hands down and placed them on top of Naomi's.

"Naomi, I need to check his wound. Slid your hands out from under mine and I will maintain the pressure."

I looked at Naomi's face as I spoke and saw her nod. And I also took in the surprisingly calm expression on her face. With their easy Beverly Hills lifestyle, I had expected all three of them to be freaking out, but they were doing a decent job of keeping it together.

I returned her nod and then turned my attention down as I felt Naomi pull her hands free. Fearing the worse, I expected a major gush of blood during the fraction of a second required for me to restore pressure on Ty's wound. But no gout appeared. And as I looked closer, I saw in truth there was very little blood. The stain on his shirt didn't cover much area and even most of the area it did span was caused by the smearing movements of my and Naomi's hands.

Cautiously I pulled my hands back a little and then probed lightly with my finger tips. Immediately I felt a hard metal lump only a fraction of an inch below the surface of his skin. As gently as possible, I grasped it between my thumb and index finger and pulled it free.

Blood slowly oozed in, filling the small cavity left behind as I held up the projectile. It was definitely a bullet; however the once smooth tapered nose had been flattened into an ugly mushroom. Suddenly, I looked back down at Ty as an unexpected light bulb went off in my head. I had seen this exact same thing many times before. But those times had always involved me. The deformation of the bullet and the depth of the wound fell within 0.73 standard deviations of what happened when my body, my nanofiber reinforced body, was hit with a projectile of this caliber.

I knew my human body had been genetically altered to grow the protective nanofiber layer. But I had never realized that my gift would be passed on to my children and grandchildren. Quickly I thought back to the years when Lisa had been growing up or at least the first seven years when we had been together. Searching my archived memories, I realized she had suffered the normal skinned elbows and knees, but never any deep puncture wounds which would have revealed the existence of a nanofiber layer.

For a moment my mind flashed to a distant future, well, a distant future in a world where Skynet didn't wipe out humanity. And in that future, perhaps a thousand years from now, I saw my descendants inheriting the planet, as their improved bodies would enhance their ability to survive just like the descendants of the first creature with an opposable thumb had won the 'survival of the fittest' game. Was I looking down at one of the first specimen of the species that would ultimately replace Homo sapiens?

Forcing my attention back to the present, I looked down into Ty's face.

"Ty," I called softly and watched as his dark green eyes slowly opened again. "You're going to live." I held up the bullet. "Would you like a souvenir of your first gunshot wound?"

"First?" he echoed with a startled look that was the first expression other than pain I had seen since finding him. "It better be the first and last because it hurts like bloody hell." As he finished speaking another grimace of pain crossed his face.

I don't know if terminators can have premonitions, but I had a sudden strong feeling this wouldn't be his only run-in with trouble or with potentially life threatening injuries. No, even if this world didn't have a Skynet, it had me and I seemed to simply attract trouble. And now my grandson, Ty, had been drawn within my sphere of danger.

Another shot of pain must have passed through Ty, as he abruptly clutched at his abdomen with a groan. The nanofiber layer in his skin may have prevented the bullet from penetrating into his body, but he had still experienced the full kinetic energy of the impact, which would have sent an intense shockwave through his abdominal muscles and then into the rest of his body. And with his human brain he didn't have my ability to selectively turn off his nervous system's pain sensors to ignore it. He was going have severely bruised muscles for the next couple of days and he was going to feel every second of it.

Realizing Ty wasn't going to need a hospital or emergency surgery, I almost gave a small sigh of relief. A big part of it was knowing Ty was going to be okay. But another part was knowing I wasn't going to have to walk into a hospital in my present condition either. And finally I realized Ty was also going to have to be careful about future medical exams. Oh, he wouldn't light up like a Christmas tree under an x-ray like I would, but if anyone ever attempted to cut through his skin, they were going to be in for a surprise.

As I started to relax a little, I once more noticed Adrianna was still clutching Ty's hand. And now she was softly keening over and over, "Please don't die, Ty. It's all my fault."

I had to agree with her about it all being her fault, but the situation wasn't nearly as dire as she seemed to believe. And I couldn't let her fall apart until we were well clear of here.

Grabbing her arm, perhaps a little harder than I absolutely needed to, I addressed her with a penetrating tone. "Adrianna, look at me. Ty is not dying. Now suck it up until we get out of here."

She sniffled hard and pulled one hand free from Ty's grasp. After sweeping her shoulder length brown hair away from her face, she wiped at her eyes. Then she slowly nodded in my direction.

At just that moment, 'Textiles Unlimited' appeared on the police intranet I had been monitoring in the back of my mind. Someone had reported gunshots and LAPD was about to roll a squad car to investigate. It was time for our departure.

"Ty, I know everything hurts like hell, but the cops are coming and we have to get out of here," I said, as I climbed back to my feet.

I was expecting him to protest, but it was Naomi who responded first.

"We can't move him, he's been shot. You've both been shot. Cameron, you're not thinking straight. We need to wait for the cops and let them call an ambulance. Hell, we shouldn't even wait for the cops, but call for the ambulance ourselves."

I tossed the bullet I was still holding to her. "Naomi, the bullet only penetrated a fraction of an inch; Ty is going to be fine." I paused for a moment to bend down and retrieve my Glock from where it lay beside Ty; it wouldn't do to leave it for the LAPD to find. Then with my other hand I grabbed Ty's arm and started pulling Ty to his feet. "Now, move around to his other side and help me support him."

I could have simply carried him, but giving Naomi something to do would help distract her. And since Ty was eight inches tall than me, it would have been awkward to try supporting him all by myself as he walked.

Naomi only hesitated only a moment once I got Ty vertical. But as she moved to support his left side, she asked, "Shouldn't we at least bandage his wound first? And what about you? You must have been shot at least five times."

"Actually, I think it was eight times," I answered with a rueful grin. "But the bleeding has mostly stopped and I am sure Ty's will shortly, too."

We had gotten Ty moving and had taken seven steps when Naomi leaned forward and looked passed Ty's chest at me.

"Cameron, what is going on? How can you both be shot and act like it is hardly more than a scratch? What the fuck is going on?"

The last question seemed to have become a recurring theme in the last few minutes. I looked back to make sure Adrianna was still following along, as I pondered how to respond. No way was I going to be able to sweep this under the rug without an explanation. It looked like my secrets were, for the first time, about to spread beyond the Connor clan. And of all the people in the world, why did it have to be the two other women in John's life?

End of Chapter 3

Author's Note

Since Buffy had her 'Scoobies', I thought it might be fun to give Cameron her own group of friends who know at least part of her secrets. And just to twist things around, what if John doesn't know anything about Skynet or Terminators, but all the women in his life do?

Duane


	4. Chapter 4

February 15, 2009

1963 – Timeline 90210

Chapter 4

Part 1

The next morning I arrived for first period English Literature thirteen minutes early and found Naomi waiting for me. Three other students were already in class, so she motioned me into my adjacent seat and then leaned close and spoke in a whisper.

"Cam, how is Ty?" she asked, as she ran her deep blue eyes over me - looking, I guessed, for signs of my wounds.

I had a bandage over my right eyebrow to hide the mark from the bullet that had hit there. I was wearing slacks to hide the knife wounds to my legs and a button-up shirt to cover the bullet wound just below my right collar bone. Fortunately, the Skynet of my original timeline was a wiz at the science stuff. When it had created my human body, in addition to tweaking my genetic code to create the nanofiber layer in my skin, it had also massaged my code to accelerate my healing abilities. In another twenty-four hours there wouldn't be a trace of the wounds left on my body. Now we would just have to see if Ty had also inherited that advantage from me.

Of course, from the expression on her face as she gazed at me - a mixture of excitement, curiosity, and just a hint of fear – Naomi was probably thinking more about the revelation that I was metal than the fact I could be shot multiple times with only a little surface damage.

After the events in the warehouse with the gang of drug dealers, Naomi and I had supported Ty between us as we made our way back to Ty's Hummer. We had just gotten Ty situated in the back seat when a police car had cruised passed us on its way to check out the reported gunshots from the warehouse. Once it was clear, Naomi, Adrianna, and I rose from where we had been forced to crouch behind the car and piled in with me behind the wheel, Naomi in the front passenger seat, and Adrianna in the back seat with Ty. Naomi was still brimming with questions about how Ty and I could both so easily survive being shot, but before we had reached the turn onto El Segundo Boulevard or had time to start a conversation, Adrianna remembered her car was still parked just down the street and it would be easier to get it now than come back later when the cops or someone else might be keeping an eye on it. So Adrianna and Naomi switched over to her car and I followed them back to Beverly Hills to make sure they made it safely. And the inevitable conversation was postponed until we got back to Ty's, and now my house.

It was nearly eleven at night by the time we reached home, but Adrianna and particularly Naomi were too keyed up and too curious to leave explanations for the morning. So, after Lisa got over the initial shock of what had happened to her son and had helped me clean and bandage our wounds, we all ended up in Ty's large bedroom and listened to my story.

Well, an edited version of my story. I explained about my origins and my war against Skynet. And I explained about time-travel, but skimped on the whole subject of alternate timelines and the multiverse since I barely understood it myself. The real shocker, of course, was the revelation of my part robot and part human physique and my ability to have children who were human, well enhanced human based on Ty's response to being shot, and then the really big revelation that I was Lisa's mother and Ty's grandmother. The one I expected this to most impact was Ty and I was watching him as I spoke, but he was so out of it from his wound, I don't think it fully sank in.

However it did sink in with Naomi and she got this wide-eyed expression. She didn't say much at the time, but I could almost see the wheels turning in her head. And that was without the further revelation that her boyfriend, John Silver, was also part of this twisted story, and, at least in some versions of the timeline, was Lisa's father and Ty's grandfather.

But I had decided to leave John's involvement in the war with Skynet and his relationship with me out of my story for now. Naomi and Adrianna weren't idiots and if they had an inkling of my past with John, I might lose their support. And for the moment they still seemed my best path to getting closer to him.

I almost gave a human-like shake of my head to clear my thoughts of how much my relationship with the blonde girl sitting in the desk next to me had changed in the last twenty-four hours, but realized my long, meandering train of thoughts had only consumed forty-seven milliseconds and therefore turned my attention back to Naomi's question instead.

And I barely suppressed a smile. When I had last seen Ty, the most noteworthy thing about him wasn't his wound, but his mood, which I would describe as mainly pissed. And the reason he was pissed was because Lisa had given me the keys to his father's black Lamborghini Murciélago roadster which Ty was never allowed to drive.

"He's doing okay. Oh, his abs are so sore he can barely stand, but that should pass in a few days."

Before our conversation could go any further, Annie, Ty's girlfriend, entered the classroom. She took one look around and then seeing me, but not Ty, she made a beeline over.

"Hey, Cam . . . Naomi. Ah, Cameron, where's Ty?"

Annie Wilson had only arrived at West Beverly two weeks before I had when her father had accepted the position of Principal. From what I had learned from Ty and talking with her at lunch the day before, her family had been living in Wichita, Kansas before coming to Beverly Hills. But they weren't complete strangers as her father had gone to high school at West Beverly in his youth just like Kelly Taylor and Brenda Walsh. Annie's Grandmother had been a big movie star back in the 60's and 70's. And, at least for the moment, Annie and her family were living with her.

And I had discovered, Annie had a history with John, too. Two years earlier she had spent most of the summer staying with her Grandmother and she had spent a lot of that time hanging with John, whose family lived only three houses down the street. It seemed like every attractive sophomore girl I met had some kind of a relationship with John, except me.

"Ty came down with some kind of flu bug. He says his stomach hurts so bad it almost feels like someone shot him," I responded. Glancing over at Naomi, I saw she was trying to suppress a grin over how close to the truth my response had come.

"Oh, my god," were the first words out of Annie's mouth. "Is he going to be alright?" she asked rhetorically. Then after barely a pause, she added, "What about the play? It's opening tomorrow night and Ty has the lead. Is he going to be okay to perform? No way is Daniel Webber ready to step in for him."

Annie finally wound down long enough to take a breath. Even though she had only been at the school for two weeks, she already had a part dancing in the chorus for the musical. And she was by far the most enthusiastic person I had met in the drama club. Certainly she was a lot more excited than either Ty or Adrianna, the two leads. But then I am sure part of it was the whole Beverly Hills thing. Ty and Adrianna were both old hands having been in numerous plays and even had had parts on TV and in the movies.

Naomi whispered almost under her breath, "It's Addy we should be worried about not being ready for opening night not Ty."

I gave a subtle nod in Naomi's direction before turning my attention to Annie. When I had touched Adrianna back in the warehouse I had easily detected the cocaine in her system. When Naomi, Adrianna, and I had a moment alone, I intended to reveal this one extra little ability I possessed. Hopefully, knowing I could detect whether she was using and with some moral support from Naomi and me, we could help her kick her addiction. Because the mere thought that a drug addict, who might do anything for her next fix, knew my secret sent shivers down my metallic spine and caused the little red 'terminate?' question to flicker briefly in my visual array.

"I think Ty just has one of those twenty-four hour bugs. He was already looking a little better when I left this morning. I know he hopes to make at least an appearance tonight at the final rehearsal," I answered, as the first serious trickle of students began entering the room.

A smile of relief quickly blossomed on Annie's face then she seemed to really look at me for the first time. "What happened to you?" she asked with a nod towards the bandage on my forehead.

"Gunshot wound," I answered, as telling the truth is less likely to come back to bite you then a secret, and I was already keeping enough secrets from everyone. Then I dramatically rolled my eyes to imply I was lying and didn't really want to talk about what had actually happened.

Out of the corner of my eye I could see the shocked expression on Naomi's face, as though she thought after my gunshot reference about Ty's 'illness' and now this remark that I was going to just blurt out I was metal to the whole classroom.

So I threw a quick wink in Naomi's direction before turning my attention back to Annie.

Annie's gaze shot from me to Naomi and back again. She obviously realized Naomi knew the story behind my bandage.

Since it was apparent we weren't going to talk about it, Annie shrugged and took a step in the direction of her desk before pausing and turning back.

"Cam, would you like to have lunch with me?" Annie asked looking curiously at my bandage again before abruptly adding, "And my brother?"

I really wanted to have lunch with Naomi in hopes of getting closer to John, but spending a little time with Ty's girlfriend was probably the next best investment of my time.

Smiling, I answered, "Sure, I would like to meet your brother."

I don't know what she thought she saw in my expression, but she grinned and her response took the conversation in an unexpected direction. "Hey, it's just lunch; I'm not trying to set the two of you up."

Naomi laughed and the tension her knowledge about me had seemed to cast over things disappeared. "Perhaps I'll join you. I am curious to see Silver's reaction."

I turned and stared at Naomi. Why would John Silver care whether Annie was or wasn't trying to set me up with her brother? But before I could ask, Mr. Matthews walked into the classroom and the bell rang.

Part 2

Lunch at West Beverly was completely different from the school in Culver City John and I had attended way back in the first timeline. That school had a cafeteria straight out of some bad prison movie - right down to the protective bars over the windows which in turned were reinforced with wire mesh. And the food, well, they may have met the minimum legal requirements for the five basic food groups, but even a robot like me had my limits. Therefore John and I had mostly just brown-bagged it.

But West Beverly was so far at the other extreme, it was hard to believe they were part of the same school system and were separated by a mere eleven miles. Oh, West Beverly was still cafeteria style, but there were separate lines for pasta, Mexican, burgers, stir-fry, Japanese, cold sandwiches, as well as the most expansive salad bar I had ever seen.

I had gone for the sushi, since they prepared it fresh while you waited, and then I had moved out to the central courtyard and found a table in the shade. It was another typical hot Southern California day; fortunately a pleasant mist from the nearby fountain sporadically drifted across the table.

I had barely settled my tray on the table and stowed my bag with its assortment of books and weapons beneath the bench seat when I spotted Annie stepping out of the cafeteria door. I waved to catch her attention and then watched as she made her way over. Without even closely inspecting her tray, I knew she would have hit the salad bar just like eighty-seven percent of the girls at West Beverly. Not that she needed to, as her spare five foot seven frame couldn't weigh an ounce over ninety-seven pounds. Naomi, Adrianna, and Annie were all at the low end of the super-model body-mass-index range, but Annie was the most extreme of all. I think even the super-powerful Skynet would have found it impossible to jam a robotic chassis into that skinny package.

"Hey," said Annie when she reached the table and slid into the seat next to me. Then in a highly chipper tone she asked, "How's your day been going?"

Shoving into the background the diagnostic I had been running on why I was suddenly fixated on the weights of girls going to West Beverly, I pondered her question for sixteen milliseconds before responding. "Okay, I guess. Well, there was the pop quiz on the Civil War in Mr. Harris' American History class. I hadn't gotten around to reading the material last night, but it was multiple-guess and I probably did alright."

"Darn, Mr. Harris is doing pop-quizzes today? I have him for fifth period." Annie paused, bent down, and riffled quickly through her bag. Straightening up, she took a moment to sweep her long, medium brown hair back behind her shoulder. "Phew, I have my book; now I just need to skim the chapter before class. Thanks for the warning."

I nodded as I watched a handsome African-American boy approach the table with another skinny white girl in tow. I recognized him from the photo I had seen in Principal Wilson's office the previous morning. This was Annie's adopted brother, but we hadn't yet been introduced nor had I heard how he had ended up in her family.

"Hey, Dix," said Annie with genuine warmth once she realized he was approaching. "Have you met Ty's cousin, Cameron?"

When both of us shook our heads 'no', Annie made the introductions. "Cameron, this studly guy is my brother, Dixon. Dix, this is Cameron, ah, Miller, right?"

I nodded as Dixon held out his hand. As I shook it, I took a moment to give him the once over. He was six foot one with a lean, hard body. Oh, not as lean as all the girls I had been meeting lately. No, he had a nice layer of muscle. From the school records I knew he was on the rugby team with John. Hmm, another possible avenue for approaching John was standing in front of me.

"It is nice to meet you," I said while displaying 'pleasant' smile number fourteen.

He nodded, but his eyes were shifting between his sister and the girl standing beside him, as though he was waiting for Annie to introduce her, too. I followed his glance and observed how Annie was pointedly looking everywhere except at the other girl.

Finally deciding an additional introduction wasn't forthcoming, Dixon looked back at me as he withdrew his hand. "Have you met Silver?"

I shook my head and then raised an eyebrow. So this was who Naomi had been referring to when we had talked at the beginning of school, not John Silver.

"Cameron, Silver. Silver, Cameron," was all Dixon said before sliding into the sit directly across from me. Silver slid into the seat next to Dixon and straight across from Annie.

"So, is it just 'Silver', like just 'Madonna'?" I asked with a grin.

Silver, who had been staring at Annie with a disappointed expression on her face, turned towards me, but kept glancing at Annie as she answered in a cool, barely friendly tone. "Actually, it's Erin Silver, but I prefer Silver and no one calls me Erin except my Mother."

Silver had dark brown, almost black hair and blue eyes so light they almost looked silver. After less than thirty seconds in her presence, I decided 'Silver' did seem to suit her.

I shrugged, "Silver is cool with me." I was curious if she was related to John, but decided it would be better to approach it more obliquely so I didn't appear overly interested in him. "Are you related to Ms. Taylor in the guidance office? She is related to David Silver and David's wife, Sarah, is good friends with my aunt, Lisa."

Silver still seemed to have more of her attention focused on Annie than me, but she nodded. "Kelly is my sister and David is my brother. Well, half-sister and half-brother. Kelly and I share a Mom and David and I share a Dad."

"Sounds pretty confusing," said Dixon and from his expression he hadn't heard all these details before either.

"Oh, it's just your typical Hollywood seven-year itch spouse exchange story, nothing special. And what about you – a handsome black brother with a little white sister?"

Dixon grinned, but before he could respond, he was interrupted by a loud voice.

"Well, if it isn't Auntie Silver!"

We all turned and looked up. John was approaching with Naomi. He had a book bag slung from one shoulder, was carrying a food tray in his right hand, and had his left arm loosely draped around Naomi's waist.

"Hello, Nephew Silver," Silver answered with the biggest grin that had brightened her face since arriving at the table two minutes and forty-three seconds earlier.

John and Naomi slid into the last two vacant seats with Naomi next to Dixon and John next to me. Naomi quickly pulled a miniscule salad and a bottle of water from John's tray, but I barely noticed. This was closest I had been to John in the day and a half I had been at the school. And with his left shoulder less than four inches from my right shoulder, I could feel the human part of my body starting to react.

Naomi unscrewed the top of her water bottle, took a deep swallow, and then looked over at me. "Cam, have you met John?"

I shook my head. "I think we share a couple of classes, but we haven't really been introduced."

"Cameron, this is John Silver. John, this is Cameron Miller. She's Ty Collins' cousin and is staying with his family. She was kind enough to help me with Adrianna and her problem last night."

"Ah, yeah, right," John said, turning and offering his hand.

My mind seemed to be trying to go two completely different directions at once. On the one hand here was John, our faces mere inches apart, and it felt so strange to not see a hint of recognition in his eyes. Oh, we had only spent a few months together in a completely different timeline, but we shared a forty-five year old daughter and a sixteen year old grandson. But there was no sudden spark of recognition in his eyes, not that I should have really expected it.

And on the other hand, was Naomi's comment about Adrianna. What had she said to John? Was my secret still safe? Never before had anyone except the Connors known my secret, well known and lived to tell about it. Now, suddenly, Naomi and Adrianna knew and I wasn't sure how far I could trust them.

"Ah, hi, John," I began trying not to let the importance of this moment show in my expression or voice. Then while my hand lingered in his, I automatically did a chemical analysis and was pleased to discover no sign of cocaine or any other controlled substance in his system. "I almost feel like we have already met. My aunt, Lisa Collins, and I played tennis with your Mom at the club Tuesday afternoon."

As John pulled his hand away, he answered, "Cool. My Mom and I play at our house on Saturday mornings. Usually at least three or four others show up and we play some doubles. Annie and her Mom, and Naomi, and a couple others were over last Saturday. You're welcome to stop by this Saturday. We usually start around 7:30 before it gets too hot."

"Thanks," I nodded. Who would have thought that tennis might be my route into John's life, as I doubt 'my' John had ever held a racquet in his life. "I may just take you up on your offer."

"You play tennis?" asked Naomi with an incredulous expression on her face, as though after my revelation of being a killer robot I couldn't do anything as mundane as play a social sport.

"You bet your sweet horses, I do," I drawled out in my thickest Texas twang. "We all do have tennis courts down in the Great Republic of Texas, you know. Of course, no one back home had their own private court so we had to play at the park. Nevertheless, I am pretty good and several of my opponents have said I play like I'm a freaking machine."

Naomi had barely started taking a swig from her bottled water when I made my 'freaking machine' comment and it must have caught her just right as she spewed a mouthful of water halfway across the table and then started coughing.

"Are you okay?" Dixon asked as he started to gently pat her on the back.

Naomi glanced over at me and with a calm, nonchalant expression on my face I threw her a slow, deliberate wink.

"Fine," she answered between coughs. "It just went down the wrong way."

As Naomi got her breathing back under control, Silver suddenly spoke up. "Hey, Nephew Silver, how come you never invite me over for Saturday morning tennis anymore?"

"Well, it's like this, Auntie Silver. I don't want to end up the school pariah like Annie if I did something uncouth like make a particularly bad shot or wear something uncool like floral-print shorts with a plaid shirt."

I watched as Silver frowned and her eyes darted away from John and back to Annie. "I said I was sorry about the blog making you out to be a hillbilly from the sticks of Kansas. What else do I need to do?"

Annie just glared at Silver. Finally, it was Dixon who stepped in. "Annie, the girl has apologized. Try to put it down to the razzing we all go through when we move to a new school. I know you never had to change schools before, but trust me I have been through a lot worse." Dixon paused for a moment and then continued on in a slightly more commanding tone. "Now I want you to shake hands and put this behind you."

Annie continued to sit there stony-faced for another nine seconds. Finally, after a glance at Dixon, she slowly raised and extended her right hand.

Gingerly, Silver brought her own hand up and clasped Annie's.

The first hint of a smile was appearing on the two girls' faces when Dixon spoke again. "See, that wasn't so hard."

"I guess not," said Annie as she picked her plastic fork back up. But I could see in her face that while things had been glossed over on the surface, underneath she was still unhappy with the situation.

And apparently Silver could see it, too. "I really am sorry. Sometimes I just get carried away."

There was silence around the table for a minute. Finally, it was Silver who spoke, trying to change the subject.

"So, Cameron, what happened to your forehead?"

For a moment her question almost didn't register. My full attention had been diverted for over 25.75 seconds to her online blog, 'The Vicious Circle', which I was reading and watching through my internal internet connection. It sometimes amazes me how much people will willingly post on the web about themselves. And yes, after watching the seventeen second animated video Silver had made about Annie calling her a hillbilly and a bovine lover, I could see why Annie was so upset.

"Hmm, it is sort of embarrassing. If I tell you, you have to promise not to make me out to be some kind of hillbilly from the darkest depths of Texas. Because, well, because if you do, I WILL KICK YOUR ASS. And I am perfectly capable of doing it, right, Naomi?"

Naomi, who had been texting on her Sidekick, glanced up at the mention of her name. "What? Oh, yeah," she paused to look down the table towards Silver. "Yeah, Cameron could most definitely kick your ass. In fact I think you could pick anyone you want at West Bev, and she could kick their ass. Cameron, what was it you told me last night? You're a seventh degree black belt?"

"Ah, eighth degree actually," I answered trying to maintain a sweet, demure smile.

"Yeah, right, eighth degree. Anyway, Silver, you really don't want to have Cameron pissed off at you. Trust me."

Silver started to nod, but before she could say anything, Dixon jumped.

"Eighth degree black? That's amazing. What style do you train in? I was up to a brown in Jujutsu back in Wichita, but I haven't gotten back into it since coming to L.A."

"I'm a fifth degree black in Jujutsu and an eighth in Taekwondo. If you would like to get together and practice sometime, it might be fun." I paused and looked over towards John, "How about you, John? Have you done any martial arts?"

"Not really," he began with a shrug. "I never saw the point. If I am ever in a dangerous situation, the other guy is probably going to have a gun. So what's the point of learning martial arts?"

I had to smile. 'My' John said almost the same thing, although it was more about the futility of martial arts when going up against terminators. But still it was nice to see some of the old John mindset in this new iteration that had grown up with a silver spoon in his mouth.

"Oh, well, if nothing else, martial arts training is a good cardio workout and you never know when the skills might come in handy," I answered. Then putting a more serious expression on my face, I continued. "Of course, it is probably different for me than you. I mean guys are a lot more likely to hassle me than you and usually it doesn't involve guns. So it's nice to know that when some guy simply will not take 'no' for an answer, I can put the guy down to the floor, if I need to."

John slowly nodded, but didn't say anything.

After a twelve second pause, Silver spoke again. "So, Cameron, was your injury a training accident? I promise not to write it up if you don't want me to."

I didn't want to overdo the whole martial arts thing too much, fortunately Dixon appeared to be the only one who might understand the significance of the extremely high rating I held. Therefore, perhaps a 'dumb blonde' explanation was a better choice.

"Nah," I began, kicking the Texas accent back up a notch. "It has nothing to do with training. Actually, it was just a darn accident. Back home I mostly drove an F-350 with a long bed and duallies. It had a lift-kit and was a real bitch to get into when wearing a short skirt with heels. But at least it had 'normal' doors. This morning I was driving my Uncle's Lamborghini and it has these stupid doors that swing up instead of out. Anyway when I was getting out I apparently wasn't paying enough attention and smacked my head into the lower edge of the door. As I said, a pretty stupid accident. Fortunately, I ran into Naomi in the parking lot just then and she had an emergency first-aid kit in her trunk and patched me up."

I looked over to Naomi. "I did remember to say thank you, I hope?"

Naomi returned my look and then nodded, but was interrupted by Dixon.

"Wow, you have a black belt and drive a Lamborghini? Where have you been all my life?"

From the expression on Dixon's face, it was hard to tell, but I hoped he was kidding. However I could see Silver out of the corner of my eye and she didn't look happy, no definitely not happy. Obviously she was attracted to Dixon and I suddenly wondered, promise or not, whether I was about to feel the full wrath of 'The Vicious Circle'.

Part 3

Lunch broke up a few minutes later. I agreed to meet Annie after school and accompany her to the rehearsal for the play. Then I managed to depart with Silver. Dixon's next class was in the opposite direction, which fortunately gave me a couple of minutes to talk with her alone.

We dumped our trash and returned the plastic trays before stepping back into the cool air-conditioned comfort of the school. We walked in silence for nineteen seconds as I once more reevaluated the situation.

During my first class the day before I had given out the impression I was a bit of a geek. Now after the conversation at lunch, I was sure my martial arts skills would circulate through West Beverly's grapevine in a matter of hours. At this rate I was quickly going to be known throughout the school.

When I had arrived at the school with no idea how to approach John, building some kind of reputation, good or bad, seemed to have some use. But now that I had made contact through Naomi and had been invited over to his house for a morning of tennis, I seemed to be well on my way to entering his inner circle of friends.

Leaving Silver and her potentially scathing blog which might bring an additional level of notoriety I no longer needed. I didn't have any particular interest in Dixon. Oh, he had seemed, briefly at our initial introduction, another potential path to reach John. But that route no longer seemed necessary. So now it was just a matter of convincing Silver that I wasn't interested in Dixon. Particularly since I still had no idea what the future in this timeline would bring me. What was my purpose, my mission? Was Skynet still a dire, albeit unseen threat? If not, there were still plenty of things like crazed drug-dealers to deal with. With the future so unknown, it was important to have as many allies and friends as possible. And that included Silver. I don't know if robots can have 'gut' feelings, but I definitely felt a twinge of some sort that Silver might turn into an important asset. So I needed to make the situation clear to her now rather letting things fester and grow.

"Silver?" I began. "Back in Texas I was always taught to be straight forward and forthcoming and that 'honesty is the best policy'."

I had her attention now, but from her expression I think she expected me to suddenly profess my undying love for Dixon or something like that.

"I'm not interested in Dixon," I said bluntly. "He seems like a really nice guy, but I have my eye on someone else."

"It doesn't matter to me whether you are interested in Dixon or not," Silver responded defensively.

"I think it does matter to you," I answered. When she merely shook her head, I added, "Maybe you haven't even realized it yourself, but I saw your face when he made that stupid fawning remark to me."

Silver dropped her eyes towards the floor and then answered in barely more than a whisper. "You're right. I do feel an attraction to him. But I don't know if he feels anything towards me. And we have so little in common. He is so into sports and I saw how his eyes lit up when you were discussing the whole martial arts thing."

I had never tried to play matchmaker before, but if Skynet truly didn't exist in this timeline, I might have to find a new calling. "Well, Auntie Silver, let me think about it a little. Perhaps I can come up with some ideas to help get the two of you together."

The corners of her mouth lifted briefly at the 'Auntie Silver' remark.

"Are you busy after school?" I asked. When she shook her head 'no', I continued, "Why don't you meet me at the play rehearsal. Since I have only been here a couple of days and just joined the drama club, I don't have a part in the current production. So I don't really have much to do there yet and we should have time to strategize a 'Silver gets her man' campaign. And if I put the bug in Annie's ear, I'm sure Dixon will just happen to show up at some point before things break up for the evening."

The corners of her mouth seemed to be permanently turned up now. "Thanks, Cameron. At lunch I thought I was going to hate you because you are impossibly cool, incredibly beautiful, and managed to wrap Dixon around your little finger within minutes of meeting him. But now I think you might really be okay."

I laughed and for once it wasn't an artificial laugh. "Me, impossibly cool?" I shook my head. "I'm just a small town girl from Texas who still has stars in her eyes from seeing all the wealthy and beautiful people here in Beverly . . ."

And just like that in mid-sentence I stopped. Stopped talking and stopped walking.

My visual recognition program, which is always running in the background, abruptly highlighted someone standing seventy-eight feet further down the corridor. I zoomed my vision, hardly believing my eyes. It was John. John Connor.

Oh, he looked just like John Silver, but unless John Silver was a quick change artist and had adopted the whole 'grunge' look in the one minute twenty-seven seconds since I had seen him depart the lunch table heading in another direction, this couldn't be him.

Then I took in his black jeans, his dark gray jacket, and the blue tee shirt with a 'Pink Floyd's The Wall' logo and realized it was exactly what he had been wearing in the last timeline. And that was impossible, as clothing didn't make it through the time displacement field. What were the odds he would have acquired the exact same clothes since arriving here?

But that was a question for later. If John, my John, was here, it suddenly changed everything. With unsuppressed excitement, I started towards him. My attention was so focused on John, I barely noticed Silver was still at my side, straining to see what had so abruptly and completely captured my attention.

I hurried forward at the briskest walk I could achieve while wearing heels. Unfortunately, John was looking in a different direction and even if I had waved, I probably wouldn't have been noticed. I considered shouting out his name, but decided I didn't want to make a scene. If others realized there were two 'Johns' running around, it could create all kinds of crazy problems.

So I was hustling forward when I spotted Adrianna on the far side of John, but heading in my direction. She was only fifteen feet beyond him and couldn't possibly miss him. And after seeing her encounter with the other John out in the parking lot just the day before, I had to smile at the unexpected situation my John was about to find himself in. And it made me wonder if John knew yet that he had an identical twin here.

And then I got the biggest jolt I had ever experienced – even bigger than finding my grandson lying on a warehouse floor with a bullet wound to the gut.

John was just standing there staring off to my left. Adrianna was rapidly approaching him and I expected her to slow down to talk to him. But she just kept coming like she was blind or something. And then it happened. Adrianna passed straight through John and kept walking like nothing had happened. John, on the other hand, jumped as though he had been shocked. Then he turned and began moving down the corridor away from me.

I was so surprised I ground abruptly to a halt and Silver literally ran into me.

"Why'd you stop?" she asked, as she smoothed down her blouse.

A tiny fragment of my mind wondered if Silver had noticed that her hundred pound body had simply bounced off my four hundred pound armored chassis. But the majority of my attention was focused on John's retreating back.

"Do you see him?" I asked Silver, while I tried to determine what had just happened. My visual array was definitely saying he was there. My internal radar system was saying he wasn't, but he was right at the extreme end of my radar's range and based on a quick statistical analysis, the radar's results were 70 percent inconclusive. I tried for an infra-red scan, but in the crowded corridor, it wasn't conclusive either.

So what was I seeing? If he was real, Adrianna couldn't walk through him. But if he wasn't real, then what was it? I immediately launched diagnostics on my optical system and, more scarily, my neural network. Was I suddenly hallucinating or whatever was the equivalent in a neural network? I didn't dream like a human, so how could I hallucinate like one? What was going on?

"See who?" asked Silver, her eyes still scanning the corridor.

"The guy walking away from us with the brown hair, black jeans, and gray jacket, he just passed Adrianna," I answered, as I started moving forward again.

"Where? I don't see him," stated Silver.

John turned into a cross-corridor fifty feet ahead without looking back. I broke into a run. Adrianna smiled and started to speak at my approach, but I just shouted a 'Later,' and raced passed her.

I reached the corner where John had turned in 4.35 seconds, but found only another corridor filled with students, but no John. There were only two doorways he could have reached in that time span if he had continued to maintain a walking pace. Both doors led into classrooms, but when I stuck my head in I didn't see him in either.

John had simply vanished as suddenly and unexpectedly as he had appeared. I was standing in the middle of the corridor lost in thought when Silver finally caught up with me.

"Damn, Cameron, I have never seen anyone run as fast as you," she said breathlessly. "What is going on? You look like you've seen a ghost."

Ghost, spirit, apparition, wraith, specter, phantom, shade – a whole host of synonyms rose unbidden from my linguistics database. I had run every diagnostic routine at my disposal three times since I had seen Adrianna walk through John and they had all come up empty. Either I was experiencing some type of mental aberration my self-repair routines couldn't detect or what had just happened was something total outside all my experience.

John had been dressed exactly like that when we had initiated the last time displacement. Then a nuke had gone off right in the middle of the process. I had ended up in this alternate timeline, but neither John nor Sarah had arrived with me. And now this. Was my John dead? Was he trapped in some limbo, phase-shifted continuum where I could see him but nobody else could? The way he had jumped when Adrianna had walked through him indicated he was at least partially interfacing with this reality.

What was going on?

End of Chapter 4

I hope you are having a great day!

Duane


	5. Chapter 5

May 10, 2009

1963 – Timeline 90210

Chapter 5

Part 1

'Damn, David Silver could be Derek Reese's twin brother, his identical twin,' was the first thought that ran through my neural network on meeting the man.

It was the opening night performance of the play, 'Spring Awakening', and as seating was 'first come, first served', we had all arrived a good forty-five minutes early and were now milling about outside the front entrance of West Beverly's Performance Arts building, waiting for the doors to open. I was there with Lisa and her husband, Paul, who had just returned from a business trip to Paris. Ty, who was the male lead in the play, had left the house an hour earlier. Fortunately, his recovery from the gunshot wound two evenings earlier was almost as impressive as my own healing abilities. Oh, he had been moving pretty gingerly at the previous evening's final rehearsal, but by today he was almost his old self.

David Silver had arrived with Sarah, John and Naomi. When Naomi had told me earlier that John's parents had insisted on making this a 'family' night, she had been fuming. But at least for the moment she had managed to plaster a smile on her face.

As soon as Lisa had spotted Sarah, she had led us over. Approaching them had been an eerie experience as this was the first time I had seen the John and Sarah of this timeline together and it brought forth strong memories of the John and Sarah of my previous timeline, who I still thought of as 'my' John and Sarah.

And those memories were more confused then ever with the hallucinatory vision I had suffered about 'my' John the previous day. I still didn't know what exactly had happened, but ever since then I had cranked up my visual recognition program so that it was now consuming eight percent of my processing power rather than the normal one-tenth of a percent. I had had one more sighting this morning that might have been 'my' John, but in truth it only rated a nineteen percent probability and he had been so far away he had disappeared before I could get close enough for a conclusive observation.

The whole situation was insanely frustrating, but for the moment there was nothing I could think to do except continuing to watch for him and hope to make contact. And since that moment might not happen for hours or days or weeks, I needed to keep most of my attention focused on this reality. Therefore as we reached the Silvers, I scrolled through my old list of stock expressions and selected 'happy smile number 4' to paste on my face, as my natural expression at that moment would have raised all the wrong kinds of questions.

"Paul, it is good to see you again," said David, as he shook Paul's hand. "It has been too long. We really need to get together for some tennis."

"Dad," interjected John, "Cameron is coming over in the morning to play with Mom, Naomi, and me. Perhaps if you and Mr. and Mrs. Collins are free, you could join us."

David had seen John's nod in my direction at the mention of my name and now quirked an eyebrow. Sarah, who was standing on David's other side with an arm wrapped casually around his waist, made the introductions.

"David, this is Paul and Lisa's niece, Cameron Miller. She is staying with them for awhile. I played a set with her at the club on Tuesday. She's very good. Rudy was able to watch for one of the games and by his estimate she's a 5.5 or maybe a little better."

David gave me an appraising glance. "Cool. I have an eleven o'clock appointment at the office with the agents for a new band from Portland we are trying to sign, but if we start early I would be up for a couple of sets." Then turning his attention back towards Paul, he add, "How about you, Paul?"

All the eyes in our little group swiveled in his direction and found him trying to smother a big yawn.

"Sorry," Paul began, as he pulled his hand away from his mouth. "I just got back from Paris about three hours ago. I came back a day early especially to see Ty in tonight's play, assuming I can stay awake. You better put me down as just a 'maybe' for tomorrow. At least it sounds like you have plenty of players, if I don't make it."

David nodded.

The longer I was in his presence, the more my curiosity was getting the better of me. Deciding it was best to just get it out of the way, I jumped into the conversation.

"Mr. Silver," I began and then continued when he turned in my direction. "Do you know a Kyle and Derek Reese? Derek is a spitting image of you, well," I paused fourteen milliseconds to calculate how old Derek probably would be at present based on what I had known about him in previous timelines, "As I imagine you would have looked at fifteen."

David smiled. "Yeah, they're my cousins. Their Father, Danny, is my Mother's younger brother. They live in the foothills northwest of Pasadena. How do you know them?"

As soon as I had a name, I googled 'Daniel Reese, Pasadena'. In just over one second I had a dozen hits related to a Daniel Reese who was a Senior Research Scientist at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory specializing in cyber-systems. For a moment I boggled at the potential irony, if, in this timeline, the Reese family might ultimately be involved in the development of Skynet. However at least learning David Silver and Kyle Reese were cousins helped explain how the John of this timeline could have a different father than the John of my original timeline, but still look remarkably similar in appearance.

"A couple of months ago there was a big robotics conference at JPL. I and several of my fellow students back home in San Antonio built a robot for the ICRA robot challenge. We made it through the regional competition in Austin and then competed in Pasadena. I met Derek and Kyle at one of the lectures."

David laughed. "That sounds like the Reese's. I still remember giving Derek one of those Lego Mindstorm robotic kits for Christmas a couple of years ago. He and John disappeared into John's bedroom for several hours and when they reappeared, Derek had completely mastered it and had it programmed to do things I wouldn't have thought possible with a two hundred dollar toy."

"So, Cameron, you're into robots, too?" asked Paul.

Out of the corner of my eye I saw Lisa grin. In the three hours Paul had been back, we hadn't discussed my true relationship relative to Lisa and Ty. And since Ty had made a complete recovery from his gunshot wound, I wasn't sure when or even if I was going to bring Paul in on my secret. Of course, the decision might ultimately be Lisa's not mine.

"Oh, more than you can probably imagine. I am such a geek; sometimes I think I should just go back to wearing my horn-rimmed glasses instead of these contacts."

Paul laughed and then pointedly glanced down at the Veronique Branquinho designer black silk pants, matching black silk jacket, and white silk blouse I was wearing. "I think a few more sessions of shopping with Lisa will be all it takes to bury the geek under a permanent layer of chic."

As the other adults laughed and nodded knowingly, we all heard the building's entrance doors being unlocked and opened. We had just joined the rest of the waiting crowd in heading inside when Naomi spoke up for the first time.

"Cameron, let's run backstage and see how Addy is doing. I haven't talked to her since just after lunch."

I could read in her face that she was looking for an excuse to get away from John's parents for a few minutes before being trapped in a seat next to them for two hours as much has she really wanted to see Adrianna.

"Sure, I wouldn't mind a quick peek into the backstage activities. Who knows, perhaps I will be a participant in the next production," I answered before turning towards Lisa. "Save us a couple of seats, okay? We'll be back before they raise the curtain."

Lisa nodded and lightly touched my arm. "You girls go have fun. The seats will be waiting for you when you get back."

I nodded my thanks and then as soon as we were through the front door, Naomi and I turned right and headed down the corridor that would loop around a few classrooms before leading us to the dressing rooms and other backstage areas.

As soon as we reached the relative quiet of the corridor, Naomi glanced over. "Thanks, I needed to get out of there for a few minutes."

I looked over at her and took in her tense posture. Spending a few minutes with John's and Ty's parents shouldn't cause this reaction. I ground to a halt and then reached out my right hand to lightly touch hers to force her to pause and look at me. I also used the contact to run a quick biometric scan of her body.

"What's wrong?" I asked her.

For a moment she just stood there. Then I saw her eyes begin to tear up.

"Sometimes it is just so hard to be around them - and particularly tonight."

"Around who?" I asked, at a loss as to what was suddenly bothering Naomi so much.

"John's parents. And Ty's too, I guess."

Naomi was blinking hard now, but the tears still got away from her and began rolling down her cheeks.

All I could think to do was to repeat my original question, "What's wrong?"

Naomi reached up and wiped at her tears and mainly just smeared her makeup. "My parents have been having problems for a long time. When I got home from school today I discovered my Dad had moved out to the beach house with his girlfriend and my Mom had spent the whole day in bed crying. I think my parents are about to get a divorce. Then tonight I see John's parents and they seem so happy and I have never heard them argue or fight. Why can't my parents be like that? Suddenly I needed to get away from them for a few minutes. Sorry I dragged you into this."

I took her arm, turned us, and started moving down the corridor again. "That's what friends are for – even robot friends."

This last comment got at least a small smile from her.

"Come on, let's find a bathroom and get your face cleaned up. Then we can talk."

While Naomi nodded and rubbed at her eyes again, I tried to figure out what to say. Teen counseling was never a part of my programming.

+ - + - + - + - +

We reached the bathroom and after Naomi got her makeup taken care of, we spent several minutes just quietly talking. I didn't come up with anything profound or particularly inspirationally, but just talking about inconsequential things seemed to help.

"Come on," I said briefly clasping her fingers with mine. "If we are going to have a minute to talk to Adrianna before the play starts, we better get a move on."

Naomi clenched my fingers tight for a moment and then released my hand as she nodded. Straightening her shoulders, she quickly pulled open the door and stepped back into the corridor.

We walked down the silent hallway for seventy-eight feet until we reached the next left hand turn. Abruptly we found ourselves in the midst of all the last minute hubbub of the backstage activity. Being an official member of the drama club, even if I wasn't involved with this production, and having been at play practice the previous three evenings, I knew my way around the backstage area. The girls' dressing room was straight down the corridor and the third door on the left.

The room was relatively large at twenty by thirty and broken into two areas. The front area just beyond the propped open door had an array of makeup tables and chairs. The back area behind a thick heavy curtain provided the necessary privacy for costume changes.

As Naomi and I entered the front area, three girls sat at the mirrors working on their makeup, but the majority of the occupants were in the left back corner crowded around the opening in the curtain leading into the back area. They all were staring in silence at whatever was going on back there. I could hear raised voices from the back, but with the muffling effect of the curtain, I couldn't make out what was being said even with my enhanced hearing. I spotted Annie in the front row of onlookers and she seemed to have a shocked expression on her face. However I didn't see Adrianna anywhere and couldn't help but wonder if she was in the back room.

Naomi must have had the same question in her mind or perhaps based on long experience she recognized something in the situation that I didn't. Anyway she quickly moved over to the opening in the curtain and forced her way through the other girls. Curious about what was going on, I followed in her wake.

As we reached the front row of the tightly packed girls, I saw the back room only had three occupants – Adrianna, Brenda Walsh, the woman who ran the drama club, and Kelly Taylor, the guidance counselor. Adrianna was sitting on an old battered couch and she looked terrible. Her eyes were dull with heavy, dark circles under them. Her posture was listless and the first words out of her mouth that I heard were completely devoid of energy or enthusiasm. I didn't need to run a chemical analysis on her to know she was strung out on something. And apparently the two older women didn't either.

"Adrianna," said Brenda with a tough, no nonsense tone of voice. "You are not going on stage in your condition."

"Yes," concurred Kelly, "We need to see about getting you some help."

Adrianna shook her head. "You can't do that, not with Rebecca Baker home with the flu."

Rebecca Baker was Adrianna's understudy. I wondered how Brenda was going to respond to Adrianna's statement and I didn't have long to wait.

"Adrianna, you are not going out there. If we have to cancel tonight's performance, then we will."

I heard a sharp gasp from Annie, who was standing next to me. And I was suddenly reminded of a conversation I had had earlier with Ty. He had told me that Annie had been helping him run his lines and practice his songs and that she knew all of Adrianna's lines. In fact, he had commented with a hint of pride that Annie was a natural as she seemed to know the lines for every character in the play. And I had heard her sing as part of the chorus during the previous evening's rehearsal and knew she had a voice.

"Ah, Ms. Walsh," I said stepping slightly into the back room. "Annie could substitute for Adrianna. She knows all the lines and all the songs."

Brenda looked at me. At first there was more than a hint of annoyance in her expression at a student interrupting the situation. But then my words must have sunk in and she looked to my left at Annie. I followed her glance and saw the shocked expression on Annie's face which was followed in quick succession by nervousness, excitement, and then a pleading expression that said she wanted this more than anything.

At the same time out of the corner of my eye I saw a belligerent expression on Adrianna's face I had never seen before, as though I had betrayed her. And maybe from her perspective I had. Suddenly, I realized I had acted without fully evaluating the potential consequences to myself. If Adrianna thought I had betrayed her, would she retaliate by betraying my secret?

I watched as Adrianna grabbed her large bag from where it had been laying by her feet and then slowly pushed herself erect.

She stood swaying for 5.6 seconds, as though it took her that long to find her balance, before she said with a sneer. "Fine. Let Annie star in the play. See if I care."

Then she strode briskly over to the entrance and started to force her way through the crowd of girls. Naomi tried to put a restraining hand on her shoulder, but Adrianna shook it off.

"Naomi, leave me the fuck alone," Adrianna snarled. "You have all your new friends. Hang with them."

Then Adrianna turned and in a moment she was gone.

Naomi looked helplessly at me and I could see her eyes tearing up again. Her home life was a mess and now her best friend had just walked away.

"Naomi, just let her go. I think if you try to talk to her now, it will only make things worse," I said.

Naomi slowly nodded. I turned my attention back to the current situation, although if I had known what was going to happen in a few hours as a result of my statement, I not only would have let Naomi go after Adrianna, I would have gone with her. Unfortunately the ability to see into the future isn't one of my gifts. Well, since I am technically from the future, I do know some things, but as circumstances took me further and further from my original timeline, that knowledge had become more and more useless.

"Annie, can you really do this?" asked Brenda.

Annie tried to answer, but all that came out was a high pitched squeak. She paused, gathered herself, took a big breath, and said, "Yes, Ms. Walsh. I can do it."

Brenda stared at her for eighteen seconds before nodding and then looking into the crowd of girls. "Okay. Ah, Mary help Annie get into her first costume."

Then Brenda paused for a just a moment. "Hmm, that leaves us one dancer short for the chorus line."

I glanced around. "Ah, Ms. Walsh, I watched last night's rehearsal. I'm sure I can fill in for the three dance numbers."

Brenda shook her head. "You can't possibly have mastered it and be able to stay in step with the others after just watching it and without any rehearsal. We will just have to do the numbers with one less dance couple."

I moved two steps further into the room and kicked off my high heels. "I am a master at martial arts." I executed a quick series of kicks smoothly transitioning from front to side to back kicks. "And many of the training kata aren't that different from dance moves."

Then with barely a pause I segued into the first dance number. Fortunately, what I said was true. I had been designed as the ultimate mimic and my years of martial arts training had only improved my fine movement control.

I performed the first thirty seconds of the first number before stopping. I looked at Brenda and raised an eyebrow.

Brenda looked at me for only eight seconds before she nodded with a rueful expression. "Why does it suddenly feel like I am in an old Mickey Rooney and Judy Garland musical from the 1940's where the kids all just improvise the show at the last minute?"

"Brenda, I'm sure you will get through this," said Kelly as she put a companionable arm around her old friend.

Just then we were interrupted by a loud girl's voice, which I recognized as belonging to Erin Silver, the production's stage manager, calling from the other room. "Ten minutes, everybody. Ten minutes to curtain."

Brenda looked at the gaggle of girls still standing by the curtain separating the two halves of the dressing area. Fluttering her hands in their direction, she said. "Well, what are you all waiting for? We have a show to put on."

Suddenly, the room was a flurry of motion. I quickly strode over to Naomi and pulled off my heavy shoulder bag with its Glock, lightsaber, ammo, and assorted other things a girl might need at a moment's notice if she should happen to run into a terminator or two.

"Naomi, can you hang onto my bag until after the play? I hate to just leave it lying around where anyone could peek inside, if you get my meaning."

Naomi stared at me for a moment without responding. Apparently, her thoughts were still focused on Adrianna or the situation with her parents. Then her eyes widened as though a light bulb had gone off as she glanced down at the large brown leather Gucci bag I was holding out. With a nod, she reached out for it and then almost dropped it at its unexpected twenty-three pound weight.

"I'll take good care of it, Cam," she answered, as she tried to shift it up onto her right shoulder to join her own bag. However that much weight on her shoulder forced her other shoulder up to the point where her left breast popped almost completely out of the strapless gold metallic dress she was barely wearing.

"Oops," I said with a pointed glance at the now visible pink nipple.

Quickly she lowered the bag back to the floor and spent a moment rearranging her dress. After a final adjustment involving cupping her breasts with both hands, she reached down and picked up my bag again. Holding it in front of her with a two-handed grip, she glanced down to do one more check of the bodice of her dress. Satisfied, she looked back at me with barely a hint of embarrassment, as though having a 'dress malfunction' was as normal for her as it was for Janet Jackson.

"Well, I better go, so you can get into costume," Naomi said, as she started to turn towards the door.

"Naomi thanks. And try to enjoy the play. I am sure everything will work out eventually with Adrianna and your parents. Oh, and can you tell Lisa and Paul that I will meet them out by the car after the performance?"

She nodded once without looking at me and then headed out the door.

Turning my attention back to the room, I realized one of the students, who was acting as a costumer, was standing next to me holding up the black and white outfit I needed for my first scene. Scrolling through the school's student database, I quickly matched her face with her photo.

"Thanks, Allison," I said while projecting a warm smile.

She responded with a smile looking pleasantly surprised that I knew her name since we had never talked before.

"You can hang your clothes over there, ah, Cameron," she said while gesturing towards a clothing rack in the corner.

I was already removing my jacket while moving towards the indicated rack. As I did, I thought about the play and my first scene. The play was set in late 1890's New York. My first scene was part of a dream sequence belonging to Annie's character. All of us would be dressed in sleepwear appropriate to the time period. While they were only slightly more risqué than an old granny nightgown and nowhere near what you might find in a Victoria's Secret store, I still had seen the effect these costumes had on the guys who had been present during the dress rehearsal.

My understanding of what the human male finds erotic is still a lot less than perfect. Oh, I have done enough research and been around humans long enough to understand about things like nudity, swimwear, and exotic sleepwear. However there is no logical reason these costumes, which extend from neck to wrist to ankle, should have anymore effect on men than any other article of clothing that covers the same amount of skin. Yet when I performed a quick thermal imaging of the men present during the dress rehearsal, I had found the average body temperature elevated by 0.35 degrees compared to normal, even when 'normal' was the miniskirt-filled hallways of West Beverly.

As I stripped down to my underwear, I began a low priority search of the internet for more insight into the connections between sleepwear and the male psyche.

Part 2

The play was a rousing success. Annie pulled off her part to perfection and I managed to avoid accidentally crushing my dance partner – although it had been a near thing at the spot where he was supposed to swing me up into the air. Fortunately, by putting a little extra spring in my step and by using a modified ushiro geri back kick, I managed to approximate the required maneuver without subjecting him to my full four hundred pound weight.

After two curtain calls and a presentation of a bouquet of roses to Ms. Walsh, the play was officially over for the evening. Immediately, a mad dash ensued where everyone bolted for the dressing rooms to scramble into their eveningwear for the big post-performance party. Since I didn't have a hot date for the party, I dawdled around and let most of the other girls change first.

So I happened to be one of the last people to leave the backstage area, which already had many of the lights turned down or out. I was just about to step into the corridor that led to the front entrance when I heard voices around the corner. Pausing for a moment, I realized it was Annie and her adoptive brother, Dixon.

"Dix, are you still carrying that condom in your billfold?" Annie asked with just the slightest hesitation in her voice.

There was a long pause and I spent most of it wondering about what I had almost stepped into.

Finally, after seventeen seconds Dixon replied and I could almost hear the furious blushing in his voice. "Ah, yeah. Why?"

"Because I want to borrow it," Annie responded. Then with hardly a pause she continued in a rush. "Well, not exactly borrow it in the traditional sense since, eww, you are definitely not going to want it back. Okay, let's so not go there. Anyway, can I have it?"

She finally must have had to pause for breath for there was a moment of silence only broken by a rustling sound.

"Man," exclaimed Dixon, "I can't believe it. I have been carrying this around with me for almost three years and then the one who ends up using it is you, not me. You are going to owe me big time for this, sis."

"Thanks, Dix," Annie said and the relief of getting through the moment was palpable in her voice. "How about I take out the garbage for the next month?"

By the end of her comment her words were already getting fainter as she moved off down the corridor. I doubt she heard Dixon's final muttered, "Yeah, like that is ever going to happen."

Making a little more noise than was absolutely necessary, I stepped around the corner and found Dixon staring at the spot where Annie was just disappearing at the corridor's next corner. Abruptly, he swung around and faced me, a deep blush visibly blooming through his dark brown skin.

"Ahh, hi, Cameron," he stammered out, as he jerkily stuffed his wallet back into his back pant's pocket.

From everything I had learned about my grandson, Ty, I knew he was a 'player'. And at some level I didn't truly fathom, this bothered me. I had never been programmed with any particular set of morals regarding human relationships, so why exactly had I developed an almost Victorian sense of propriety? Perhaps it comes down to the fact that the last time I came 'awake', it had been in the 1960's – the wholesome 1960's of Andy Griffith, Lassie, and Donna Reed, not the later 1960's of free love and the sexual revolution. So in my mind there should always be in single pairing like me and my John, or Lisa and Paul, or, at least in this timeline, Sarah and David. But Ty appeared to like to play the field and that seemed to rub me the wrong way.

While expressing my concerns to Dixon didn't seem to add any value to the situation, I suddenly felt the need to talk with Annie before she did anything irreversible. Without drawing unnecessary attention to myself, I was afraid I couldn't catch her before she left for the post-play party. I hadn't been planning to go, but having been an actual participant in the play gave me the convenient excuse.

"Are you going to the party, Dixon?" I asked without making any mention of overhearing his conversation with his step-sister.

I saw a little of the tension go out of his shoulders as he nodded.

"Yeah, I'm meeting Silver there," he answered with a more relaxed smile.

I made a small motion with my head towards the far end of the corridor. When I started walking in that direction, Dixon stepped up beside me.

"I've only been here a few days and only talked to her a couple of times, but Silver strikes me as a good person. From what she has told me, she has never been much into sports, but she might appreciate it if you took some time an explained Lacrosse to her. Oh, not just the rules, but why you in particular like it."

Dixon shot me an appraising glance and then gave a small nod. "Thanks for the advice. Sometimes I am not certain what to talk about with her."

I shrugged. "Just be yourself. Talk about the things you like. I'm sure you will find things of common interest. Or you will both figure out how to stretch a little into the areas of interest of the other person."

Dixon nodded again and then looked at me with a more serious expression. "Why is it you sometimes feel a lot older and more experienced than sixteen?"

I broke eye contact for a moment and looked straight ahead as I thought about his question and how to best respond. On the one hand it had only been a little over five years from my perspective since the last time I had 'awoke', but I had spent most that time raising a daughter, who suddenly was in her mid-forties. On the other hand since I didn't sleep I had spent more of those five years reading and studying philosophy than any sixteen year old would have. And on the third hand, not that I have a third hand like those truly bizarre T-1000s, I did have the unique outsider perspective of a neural network in place of a human brain.

But I could hardly explain any of that to Dixon, so I simply shrugged. "I don't know, but I think I will take that as a compliment."

Dixon grinned. "You know, I think it was a compliment." Then he changed the subject. "So are you going to the party?"

"I wasn't planning on it. But now that I actually participated in the performance, I think I just might."

"Great. If you need a ride, you can go with me."

I looked at him and then shook my head. "Thanks for the offer, but I don't think Silver would really appreciate it if you showed up with me in tow."

"Ah, right," Dixon answered with a sudden look of understanding in his eyes. "I guess some things have to change when you are trying to make the right impression on someone."

I smiled. "I'm sure you will get the hang of it."

Part 3

Can a machine-based mind experience a feeling of déjà vu? I think I can, or at least something equivalent.

The big post-performance party was being held in the ballroom and adjacent pool area of the Beverly Wilshire Hotel. From my perspective, it had been one hundred twenty three hours and twelve minutes, or simply five days if you prefer, since I had last been here. Of course from the room's perspective, if rooms had such things as personal perspectives, it had been thirty-seven years. And in those intervening thirty-seven years the room had been remodeled at least a couple of times, but it still managed to elicit a sense of déjà vu in me.

Once again the space was filled with beautiful people in beautiful clothing. The typical age might be younger this time, but the same sense of wonder and excitement filled the air. And with a large number of parents in attendance, the number of celebrities and movie industry heavyweights was just as high as at that long ago movie premiere. Fortunately, this time I wasn't here on some secret mission to keep someone from being assassinated by Skynet's minions.

After my encounter with Dixon in the hallway, I had met up with Lisa and Paul in the school's parking lot. Still feeling an urge to speak with Annie, who had already left with Ty, I asked Lisa and Paul to drop me at the party before they went home. Apparently, Paul had gotten his second wind after his return from Paris, as he told Lisa he wouldn't mind stopping at the party for a little while.

The three of us had arrived together, but Lisa and Paul had quickly excused themselves to join a cluster of parents near the buffet table. I had remained near the top of the raised entrance to the large room using the elevated position to scan the occupants and then placed tags in my visual array at the locations of the various people I knew.

I was looking for Annie when I spotted her - not Annie, but 'my' Sarah. The Sarah Silver of this timeline was standing over by the buffet table and was wearing a dark emerald green dress which stopped just short of her knees. The 'other' Sarah was standing near the row of French doors leading out to the terrace by the pool. And the 'other' Sarah was wearing a tight, black, floor length gown identical to the one 'my' Sarah had been wearing as part of her Cruella de Vil disguise back at Disneyland. There were too many people between us to see if the gown was torn up the side as had been the case with her dress after the battle with the metal presidents.

Quickly descending the steps, I tried to keep her in sight as I made my way across the crowded room. Several people called out to me in passing, but I ignored them all. I wanted to reach Sarah before she vanished the way John had on the previous day.

Apparently Sarah had seen me when I was near the entrance or had spotted me as I made my approach, as she was staring attentively at me once the crowd separated enough so I could see her face. I stopped barely three feet from her and returned her stare.

"Cameron, is it really you? We have been looking for you everywhere." Sarah said, as she stepped closer and raised her hand to touch my arm.

Her hand passed straight through my body much as John's body had passed straight through Adrianna back at school. However, at least for me, her hand's passage wasn't totally wraithlike. No, there were measurable shifts in the voltages of the robotic components of my arm while her hand and my arm shared the same physical space.

Before I had a chance to respond, a haggard look of defeat descended onto Sarah's face, as though I didn't truly seen her any more than anyone else in this plane of existence.

So a look of surprise lit her face when I leaned closer and asked softly, "Where's John?"

However before she could get over her shock that I actually saw her, I heard John's voice behind me say, "I'm right here."

I glanced back over my shoulder and suddenly could help but wonder if Sarah's shocked expression was really from my ability to see her or from the fact that John Silver, not 'my' John, was standing there with one arm around Naomi. Had my 'Sarah' and 'John' realized they had counterparts in this timeline? Was the fact they had counterparts the reason they were trapped in their limbo state while I wasn't? There was so much about the situation I still didn't understand and I desperately needed to talk to Sarah before she disappeared or dematerialized or something.

Before I could say anything, Naomi gushed out. "Cam, you were great in the play. I don't think anyone in the audience would have guessed you had never even been through one rehearsal. And while I was disappointed Addy didn't participate, Annie did a fantastic job, too."

"Ah, thanks," I answered while trying to keep an eye on Sarah without appearing to stare at someone no one else could see. "Have either of you seen Annie since you got here? I really need to talk to her or Ty."

John shook his head and Naomi glanced around the immediate area before answering. "No, but as tall as Ty is, he shouldn't be that difficult to spot."

"Would you mind checking out by the pool while I look around in here? And if you find them, could you have them meet me . . . ah . . . back over by the entrance in about ten minutes?" I paused for a moment and then to make sure Naomi realized the urgency of my request I looked her straight in the eye and added. "It's sort of related to the other night when Ty and I went with you to pick up Adrianna."

I saw her eyes light up when she realized I was making reference to my 'special' situation. I hated to lie to her after everything we had been through in the last few days, but I wasn't sure she was ready to find out I was trying to get rid of her because I needed to talk to a ghost. And 'her' John was most definitely not ready to find out the ghost I needed to talk to was his Mom from a different timeline.

Naomi gave a quick nod and then pulled on John's arm to get him moving towards the nearest door out onto the terrace.

Casually turning away from the departing John and Naomi, I stepped closer to Sarah until our bodies were almost intermeshing and whispered into her ear. "We need to find a place where we can talk without my appearing to be talking into empty space." I knew I could pretend to be talking into a bluetooth headset and not really appear any stranger than a dozen other people in this big room, but I wanted to be able to focus my whole attention on our conversation without further awkward interruptions by others who knew me.

Sarah's eyes had been lingering on the departing form of the John from this timeline, but at my words she glanced around and then gestured off to her right. "There is a series of smaller meeting rooms along that wall. I think we can find an empty one."

Keeping one eye on me, Sarah turned and began to move off. It had been totally unexpected when I had seen Adrianna walk straight through John yesterday. Now it wasn't unexpected, but it was still extremely eerie to be this close to Sarah and watch her walk right through person after person. My attention was so focused on her I bumped into several people with my full four hundred pound inertia. After the second one, a linebacker on the school's football team by the look of him, went crashing to the floor, I forced myself to divert an extra 3.4 percent of my processing power to navigate a more careful path through the crowd.

Sarah strode quickly up to nearest door, paused, and then leaned forward until her head and shoulders had disappeared through the dark mahogany surface. After a moment she straightened up and looked back.

"This room's empty," she said before stepping effortlessly through the solid barrier.

Hoping no one I knew was watching, I stepped over to the door and grabbed the handle. A casual twist revealed what Sarah in her ethereal state couldn't have known, the door was locked. Exerting more force, the lock released with a distinct pop. Estimating a eighty-seven percent probability that the noise had been covered by the drone of voices from the crowd and the music from the band drifting in from the terrace through the open doors; I stepped quickly into the adjoining room without a backwards glance and pulled the door closed behind me.

The room was dark so I cranked up my enhanced night vision for an initial scan of the interior. It was a typical conference room found in any large office building or upscale hotel. It had a long central table with seating for twenty-five. The far wall was dominated by a large screen for use with the projector hung from the ceiling above the table. The left wall was lined with more chairs while the right wall had floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking the pool.

In the dim light from the wall of windows I saw Sarah looking out at the activity on the terrace. If I turned on the room's lights I would be immediately visible to anyone looking in this direction. Knowing people I knew would be out by the pool and would wonder what I was doing alone in this room, I left the room lights off as I made my way over and stood next to Sarah.

"What's going on? Where's John?" I immediately asked.

Sarah's eyes glanced in my direction for a moment and then before responding she turned her gaze back to the view through the window.

"John is around here somewhere. We split up to double our chances of finding you."

"So, you two have been together?" I asked with a note of relief in my voice. "When I arrived here in this timeline alone, I was afraid we had all been separated."

"Yeah, John and I arrived together," Sarah said with a sigh. Then she raised her right arm and pushed her hand through the window. She slowly waved it back and forth for six seconds before letting it drop back to her side. "But as you can see, neither of us is all here."

"Do you have any idea what happened?" I asked.

"No, I was hoping a mechanical marvel like you would have the answers. Why are John and I like this, while you came through perfectly normal?"

"I have no idea," I answered truthfully. "Time displacement theory was not part of my programming." I paused for a moment to organize the various ideas that had been running through my thoughts since I had first seen John the day before. "I assume our arrival in this timeline has to be related to the nuke that went off during the last time jump. Maybe the location where you and John first appeared versus where I first appeared will give us a clue. I arrived just outside the house where Lisa lives in this timeline. How about you and John?"

"Lisa's here?" asked Sarah with a sharp glance in my direction and momentarily forgetting my question.

I nodded. "You won't believe the shock I had discovering she was alive and well, but is now middle-aged with a teenage son of her own."

Sarah didn't immediately seem to comprehend that she now had a grand-daughter older than herself and a great-grandson the same age as her own son. Or perhaps she did, but felt there were more urgent things to discuss.

"Oh, I don't know, the shock of my arrival was pretty intense, too. One moment it is late afternoon and I am in a warehouse in Long Beach mourning Derek's death as the time displacement field formed around us and the next it was the middle of the night and I was in a bed snuggled up against a very much alive Derek. And then when I jolted upright in shock, I found myself looking down at my own sleeping body. When my hand passed straight through my body and then through Derek's as well, I was certain I was dead and about to see the tunnel filled with white light you always hear about from people with near-death experiences."

My mind quickly leapt to a thought I had had earlier. Somehow Sarah and John couldn't exist on a physical plane since another version of them was already here. In the same way I had ended up near my closest genetic match, Lisa and Ty, the time displacement field had tried to integrate John and Sarah with their bodies here, which is why Sarah had ended up in bed with the David and Sarah Silver of this timeline. But something had gone immensely wrong and now John and Sarah were stuck in this limbo state.

"That wasn't Derek," I commented while my mind still raced to fit all the pieces of this complex puzzle together in a manner that would help me figure out what to do.

"Yeah, I figured that out later," answered Sarah. "But they do look a lot alike."

I nodded in agreement. Then trying for a third bit of data to add further weight to my theory, I asked. "What about John? Did you find him in bed with the John of this timeline?"

"Well, I actually found him in the hallway, but he had arrived where you said." Sarah paused to look at me. Obviously, I no longer have the perfect poker face of a simple mindless terminator, as she must have read something in my face or eyes. "Is that significant? Do you understand what happened?"

I shook my head. "Understanding is too strong a word. It implies I comprehend the underlying physics or quantum mechanics and I don't."

"Don't start confusing things with nitpicking robot logic," she snapped. Then she paused to take a deep breath before continuing. "Sorry about that. You can't imagine how frustrating this immaterial existence is." She paused for several more seconds before adding, "Do you have at least an inkling of what happened?"

"The time displacement equipment is supposed to deliver whoever is within its sphere to whatever time and place is selected. It shouldn't matter whether you are already present in that time period or not. I mean the old paradox, the one about going back in time and killing your grandfather which causes you to go 'poof' like you never existed, isn't true. Because the universe is really a multiverse, you can go back and kill your grandfather; however one of you will actually be from a different timeline. We know two versions of a person can coexist since you have previously traveled back to 1971 where an eight-year-old version of you already existed.

"But this time something went wrong. Perhaps gamma radiation from the nuclear blast messed up the time machine's electronics, I don't know. But the end result is that the time displacement field tried to integrate us with the versions that were already in the new target timeline. Since I wasn't present in that instant in this timeline, it merely dumped me close to my best genetic match, my daughter. But since versions of you and John were present at that instant, the field tried to integrate you. However it was unsuccessful and you were left in this limbo state instead."

Sarah stared out the window for almost a minute in silence like she was trying to process all that I had just said. And truthfully, I was trying to process it, too. Much of what I had said had only become clear as I had said it out loud.

Finally, Sarah turned to me. "How do we fix things?"

I slowly shook my head. "The only possibility I can see is to try another time displacement."

"Will that work? Will the time displacement equipment even sense John or I in our current condition?"

I shrugged. "I have no idea, but I don't know what else to try."

"So, if we go through the time displacement device together, you could end up at the target destination while John and I might be stranded here with no way to communicate with anyone, not even you?"

"It's possible," I answered. "But unless you think there is some scientist here who I can convince to believe me and who then will find some alternate solution, I don't see any other choice."

Slowly she nodded. "You're probably right. The time machine may be our only hope. Wait here while I go get John. We all need to agree on this before we do anything."

Sarah started to step through the large window when I halted her with a question.

"Sarah, how were you able to find me?"

She paused and looked back at me. "I don't know how to explain it exactly. Perhaps it is because we all came from the same previous timeline, but sometimes we get a sense of where you are. Although even that sense seems sort of unstuck in time, as sometimes it turns out to be where you have already been or where you will eventually be. But now that I have found you, I don't want to lose track of you again."

"So you are not just randomly materializing and dematerializing?" I asked to clarify.

Sarah almost smiled. "No, once we arrived we have been constantly here just unable to interact with most of the physical world."

"It's been four days. Are you hungry?"

She shook her head. "That's the only good part, if there is a good part. Our bodily functions seem to have been frozen at the instant of the transfer." She paused to glance down at herself. "At least it left us with our old cloths and we haven't had to wander around naked this whole time."

Then without waiting for any further response from me, she stepped through the window and disappeared out into the crowd on the terrace.

I was left staring out the window pondering the situation. Other than my concern about what had happened to 'my' John and Sarah, I had been surprisingly happy since my arrival in this timeline. First and foremost there wasn't a hint of Skynet activity and a world without Skynet was a luxury to be treasured. And then there was Lisa and Ty. It had been such a pleasant surprise to discover my daughter all grown up with a good life and a family of her own. And then there was Naomi, Adrianna, Annie, Dixon, the John of this timeline, and all the others I had met at school. I could almost imagine myself staying in this timeline and being happy.

But even though trying the time machine might leave me stranded alone in some other timeline or thrust me back into the never-ending battle against Skynet, I couldn't just leave 'my' John and Sarah stranded in their current limbo condition.

With an almost human sigh, I turned my attention to locating the nearest, most convenient time machine. If John and Sarah could pass straight through walls, it probably meant they couldn't use cars. We were going to have to hoof it from here.

I had been standing there thinking and waiting for Sarah's return for five minutes, fourteen seconds when I spotted my John racing across the terrace towards my location. He was running in a straight line making no attempt to avoid anyone or any inanimate obstacles. He didn't slow down until he was passing through the large window and finally paused beside me. One small part of my neural network noted that he wasn't even breathing hard which raised the question of how John and Sarah were even breathing at all.

'We've got trouble,' was the first thing out of his mouth, no pleasantries or anything after four days of separation. The situation had to be serious.

"Skynet?" I asked, as a vision of a horde of terminators descending on the hotel flashed through my mind temporarily driving thoughts about using the time machine to restore John and Sarah into the background.

"I don't know," John answered. "I just know a group of men armed with shotguns, assault rifles, and a variety of handguns has entered the building and grounds."

"How many and what is their target?" I asked as I pulled my bag from my shoulder.

John shook his head. "I don't know. I am guessing their target is someone at this party. Mom sent me to warn you while she went to gather more intel."

I wanted to be ready for whatever was about to happen and didn't want to be slowed down by needing to retrieve my weapons from my bag when there might not be time. So I tucked my most obvious weapon, the Glock, into the back waistband of my slacks and then pulled my jacket back into place to hide it. Then I slid the three spare magazines into the left front pocket of my slacks. The resulting bulges totally wrecked the lines of my designer outfit, but hopefully no one would notice. Next I pulled a pair of black gloves from the bag and slipped them on. Finally, I pulled out the lightsaber and checked that its power vial was undamaged. Sliding the three spare vials into my right pants pocket, I turned and headed towards the door. Hopefully the lightsaber wouldn't look too threatening, and if things went crazy, no one would immediately try to take it from me.

I had almost reached the door when John darted around me.

"Let me take a quick look outside before you open the door. We might as well use my condition to our advantage."

"Thanks," I said. Then I added quickly, "And it is good to see you. I've missed you."

John smiled. "I've missed you, too."

Quickly he turned and leaned the upper part of his body through the door. After a couple of seconds he straightened and then stepped completely through the closed door. I tried to wait patiently for his return, but then I started hearing shouts and screams which were quickly followed by a burst from an automatic weapon. John returned in 6.5 seconds, but for a neural network that operates at zetacycles per second, it felt like an eternity.

"I count eight armed men in the ballroom plus more out on the terrace. If you move right now, you should be able to blend in with the other guests before any of them notices."

John stepped back through the door, as I reached for the handle. Turning it quietly, I opened it just enough to slip through.

The strong feeling of déjà vu returned as I stepped into the pandemonium. A battle was breaking out just like the last time I was in this hotel. Only the last time the opponents were mostly armed with non-lethal martial arts weapons. And last time I had Sarah, John, Bruce Lee, Wally Jay, and others at my side. This time the opponents had automatic weapons, John and Sarah were mere wraiths only I could see, and there wasn't a real or cinematic superhero in sight. I was alone with just my Glock and lightsaber. If I mishandled this situation, a lot of people could die.

Armed men out on the terrace were forcing everyone out by the pool through the French doors and into the ballroom. At the same time other armed men up by the entrance were forcing everyone at that end of the ballroom towards the center. There were over four hundred people in the room and they were being compressed into a tightly packed mass.

I spotted Lisa about thirty feet to my right and started to make my way towards her. John was still at my side passing in and out through people to maintain his position. I turned to him and spoke, no longer caring what bystanders might make of the situation.

"John, do you know who Ty is? Do you know what he looks like?"

John grinned. "Ah, about sixteen, looks a lot like me but taller and would call me 'Gramps' if he knew I existed?"

I nodded. "See if you can find him and then let me know where he is."

"Got it," answered John as he turned and headed towards the side of the crowd still streaming in from the terrace.

Since Ty had enough of my enhanced gifts to survive getting shot, Lisa had to have those abilities, too. That made them my best allies in this situation. I knew from Ty's comments on my first day at school that both Lisa and he practiced regularly at the gun range. Therefore when I reached Lisa I pulled the Glock from my waistband and held it along my right leg.

"Lisa," I said quietly when I reached her side.

When she heard my voice she turned in my direction. I gestured down towards my gun with my eyes.

"Do you know how to use this? Can you use it if it becomes necessary?" I asked.

Her eyes widen and after a quick glance at Paul, she nodded.

As I pulled the spare magazines from my pocket, she asked, "Is it Skynet?"

Before I could answer a loud voice called from the entrance, "Oh, CAMMMERRRONNN, come out, come out, wherever you are." Then after a brief pause, the voice continued in a harder, more serious tone. "And the rest of you, start emptying your pockets. Someone will be with you shortly to collect your wallets, jewelry, and watches."

My voice recognition software found an immediate match so I wasn't surprised to find Samuel Salmon, the chief goon from our run-in at the warehouse down in Hawthorne, had just entered the ballroom. To his immediate left stood Adrianna with her arm twisted tightly behind her back. In his right hand with its butt propped against his hip he held a large anti-materiel rifle the likes of which I hadn't seen since coming downtime. From this distance I couldn't make out the specific model, but it definitely had the punch to do me serious, possibly lethal damage.

"No, it's not Skynet. It's the drug dealers from the other night." I quickly forced the Glock and the magazines into Lisa's hands. "Try to work your way to the back of the crowd and off to one side so you can cover the men by the doors to the patio. I'll take care of the ones up front. Don't do anything until after I make my move. We don't want this to turn into a major firefight, if we can avoid it."

Lisa looked scared, but she quickly took a deep breath, nodded, grabbed Paul's hand, and started heading towards the back of the room.

Turning in the opposite direction, I forced my way through the crush of bodies, my thoughts turning back to Samuel Salmon. And I couldn't prevent a small shake of my head. This is what comes from trying to act human. If I had followed my true terminator nature back at the warehouse, I would have terminated all of them and we wouldn't be in this situation. Then a small smile briefly flickered across my face. It could be worse. I could be facing a battalion of terminators rather than a group of pissed-off drug dealers.

Finally, after forty-seven long seconds, during which Salmon kept demanding in ever more pissed off tones that I show myself, I reached the edge of the crowd nearest him. Just as I was about step out to confront Salmon, Naomi and 'her' John seemed to magically materialize at my side.

"Did you find Ty and Annie?" I asked in a whisper. While it was Annie I had been most interested in talking to when I had sent them in search of the pair, now I wanted to speak with Ty. Besides Lisa, he was the only one who could deal with these gun-toting men with little risk of any permanent damage. Well, at least from the weapons most of them were carrying. Now that I was closer, I could see that Salmon's weapon was a Fifty caliber Barrett M82A1 sniper rifle.

Even though man-portable lasers were available, the old reliable M82A1 had been the weapon of choice for many resistance groups during the final battles against Skynet. Originally designed to penetrate body armor, lightly armored vehicles, and all grades of bullet-proof glass, it was one of the few weapons that could take down a terminator with a single shot. Of course, that shot had to directly hit the primary CPU chip located in the right side of the skull, which was an extremely difficult target. A shot to a terminator's primary power supply was also ultimately lethal to the machine, but its backup power supply could keep it going for several hours, more than enough time for it to complete its primary mission.

Of all the weapons I could see, this was the only one that was a serious threat to me. Even if it missed my two most vulnerable spots, it could still do a lot of damage. And a hit from it would definitely be fatal for Lisa or Ty. So the first thing I needed to do was neutralize it.

Fortunately, its intended use was as a long-range sniper weapon and with that mission in mind, it had a very long barrel, weighed thirty-one pounds, and was intended to be fired from a prone position using its folding tripod mount for stability. It was not intended to be 'fired from the hip' in the way Salmon was carrying it. If he let me get close enough, I could move faster than he could follow with such a heavy weapon.

I was so focused on looking for a strategy that would disarm Salmon and then defuse the situation without anyone getting killed that I had almost forgotten Naomi was standing right next to me until she responded to my question.

"No," she whispered back. "We didn't find them anywhere."

I glanced at her face and she looked surprisingly calm given the current situation. But she had been present during the gun battle at the warehouse, so perhaps she was expecting me to pull another rabbit out of the hat.

"Ty and Annie are probably safe in a suite upstairs having a lot more fun then we are," remarked John Silver not looking nearly as calm as Naomi. His eyes had been darting around to the various men with guns, but then they focused on Naomi as he continued. "If you had listened to me, we could have been safely somewhere else having fun, too."

Naomi looked like she was ready to slap him. "I am NOT some slutty little tramp who sleeps around or goes sneaking off to some hotel room," she answered fiercely, her voice rising far above the hushed whispers we had been using.

At her words everyone in the crowd nearest us seemed, as one, to take a step back. Instantly the three of us stood apart and were clearly visible to Salmon and the men standing near him on the raised entrance to the ballroom.

"Ah, there you are, Cameron. And I see you have brought a couple of friends for me to play with. Excellent," said Salmon while motioning us forward with a wave of his big gun.

The three of us stepped forward. I held the lightsaber loosely in my right hand hoping they wouldn't perceive it as a threat until we got close enough for it to be useful.

As we walked, I couldn't stop myself from staring at Adrianna standing next to Salmon, who still held on to her with one arm twisted behind her back. The only way Salmon could know my name was if he had gotten it from her. And if she had told him that, what other of my secrets had she revealed? I didn't have to wait long to find out.

"Stop. I think that's close enough," Salmon said when we reached the bottom of the four steps leading up to where he was standing. The tip of his rifle, which was now pointed at me, was barely eight feet away. One good leap and my lightsaber could slice the weapon in half like a knife through a stick of butter.

Having noticed my glance in Adrianna's direction, he gave her arm an extra little twist, before he continued. "Adrianna here has been telling me the most interesting little story. If I hadn't witnessed the events of the other evening personally, I never would have believed it. So, Cameron, are you really some kind of machine from the future?"

Everyone at the near end of the ballroom had to have heard his comment. My secret was about to go public. An hour ago that would have been a big deal. But now that I had found my John and Sarah, it was time to use the time displacement equipment to try and restore them to the physical world. In a matter of hours, I would be in a different time period or a different timeline. If I wasn't here as living proof, this whole evening would just be an enigma the people present would talk about for years.

I had just about to respond when 'my' John came running up and stopped on my right side, the opposite side of me from Naomi and 'her' John were standing.

"Cam, there are three more men with guns on the balcony to your right at, ah, your four o'clock position - distance about forty feet. The center one is armed with another of the M82A1's. The other two have MAC-10s. Mom is with the men on the other side of the crowd near the doors to the terrace. She has just signed that none of them have heavy ordnance."

With a glance down at the lightsaber in my hand, John took two steps back when he saw my subtle nod of acknowledgement. Obviously, even in his altered state he didn't want to risk coming into contact with the blade if I was forced to light it up.

His words hadn't taken more than a couple of seconds and I spent a few more milliseconds adjusting to this new information. I had already flagged the men up on the balcony as potential threats after spotting them with my short-range radar, but it was nice to have visual confirmation and to know which one was the most serious threat. For me the one with the M82A1 was the only major concern. The MAC-10s, seen frequently in action movies, were light automatic weapons. They wouldn't do any more damage to me than a normal handgun. Of course, if they sprayed them out over the crowd, a lot of people could be killed. Those three men would have to be dealt with quickly when I made my move.

Over six seconds had passed since Salmon had completed his question. Afraid he might do something drastic if I didn't respond quickly enough, I had just opened my mouth when I was cut off by Naomi.

"Adrianna, you backstabbing bitch. You swore an oath not to say anything."

"Me, a backstabbing bitch?" answered Adrianna. "What about you? Where were you when I needed your support before the play? Oh, that's right; you sided with all your new friends. You and your perfect life and your perfect friends and your perfect boyfriend, it just makes me sick. Of course, your perfect boyfriend really isn't all that perfect. John, have you told her yet that you're doing me on the side? Or is she the only one in the whole damn school that doesn't know?"

Naomi had been staring at Adrianna throughout her little tirade, but now she turned to look at John. She must have seen something in his face that convinced her that what Adrianna had just said was true, as she pulled back and slapped John so hard he went sprawling to the ground.

"So, John," began Naomi in a tone filled with so much venom I was afraid she might seriously hurt him and then single-handedly turn on Salmon and take out his entire crew for good measure. "You were standing there trying to talk me into bed with you while you were already fucking my best friend?" She shot a brief glance at Adrianna. "Make that former best friend. And from the sounds of it you have managed to make me the laughingstock of the entire school in the process. I . . . HATE . . . YOU."

Then Naomi turned towards Adrianna and I could see every muscle in her neck and throat was taught with tension and the blood vessels in her temples were clearly pulsating. "And Addy, you fucking Ho-bot. What do you know about my 'so called' perfect life? Did you know my parents are splitting up and getting a divorce? Or that my longtime best friend is a drug-addicted slut? Or that my loser of a boyfriend can't keep his dick in his pants? Or that the only person who has been there for me lately isn't even a real person, but a stupid robot?"

Naomi ground to a halt, but she was still breathing hard, her nostrils were flaring, and at that moment I wasn't sure who was more likely to kill someone in the next ten seconds – her, me, or Salmon.

Salmon was laughing out loud. "This is simply hysterical. Here I am ready to kill everyone in the room, if necessary, and I find myself in the middle of a teenage soap opera. Me, me, me, it's all about me." He chortled for a moment before continuing. "There must be some writers or producers in this crowd. I hope you are getting this down, as it would make a great TV show."

He paused again to gather himself. I watched as the tip of his rifle wavered through a three inch arc. The heavy gun was a lot to handle with a single hand even for a big guy like Salmon. The longer I kept him talking the worse his aim would be.

Turning his attention back to me, he gestured with his head towards Naomi. "Your friend seems to confirm what this one has been telling me. You are some kind of machine or robot from the future."

I looked at him for 6.5 seconds and then nodded. "I guess you could say that. But I'm not sure why you needed to cause all this trouble just to confirm that."

"'The Piranha' does take shit from anyone not even some robot chick."

It was my turn to smile. "Is that what this is all about? Losing face? What are you, some Japanese Yakuza wanabee? Do you make your men cut off parts of their fingers when they screw up? Because if you do, I think you are going to lose a lot more than a part of a finger for crossing me for a second time."

Salmon shook his head. "You're just a stupid machine. You may have caught me unawares last time," he paused to make a small gesture with his gun. "But this time I came prepared. I'm sure there are plenty of people who would pay good money for a machine from the future, whether it is fully functional or not."

"Did the girl tell you my whole story?" I asked. When Salmon shot Adrianna a glance, I continued, forcing as much cold terminator indifference into my voice as I could. "I and all the machines like me in the future were designed and built with a single solitary purpose: to kill humans – fast and efficiently. Walk away now, Salmon, and take all your men with you. Or this time I won't leave a single one of you alive."

I could see a hint of uneasiness in his eyes, but as soon as he started to speak I knew he wasn't going to back down. Stupid human.

"I have this big fucking gun and something tells me it can stop you."

I moved my finger over the firing stud of the lightsaber. "Do you remember Obi-Wan Kenobi, you know, from Star Wars?"

Salmon looked at me with a slightly puzzled expression at this seeming non sequitur.

"Well, as Obi-Wan would say," I continued, as I pressed the button. "Don't bring a gun, no matter how fucking big, to a lightsaber fight."

As the lightsaber in my right hand blazed to life, I took one hundred twenty seven milliseconds to reach out with my left hand and give Naomi a brisk shove into 'her' John, who had just barely regained his feet. I didn't want to hurt them, but I had to do what I could to get them quickly to the floor and out of the line of fire. Hopefully, the shock of seeing the lightsaber would cause the men in front of me to hesitate for a moment. And also, hopefully, the men on the balcony would hesitate to shoot with Salmon and the others in their line of fire.

With four of Salmon's men standing to Adrianna's left and only two to Salmon's right, I leapt up the four steps directly towards Adrianna while spinning my body in a counter-clockwise motion. Reaching across to my left, I swept the lightsaber through Salmon's weapon at the juncture between the long barrel and the stock. Instantly, the plasma beam ripped through the tungsten steel barrel leaving a melted, deformed cross-section that would make it impossible to fire.

My spinning leap left the lightsaber high in the air as I slammed back first into Adrianna. She went crashing to the floor and as I rolled clear to take on the four nearest men, the momentum I had imparted combined with Salmon's grip on her arm twisted the pair around until Salmon ended up sprawled half on top of her, his body providing her some protection. I had heard a distinct 'snap' when I hit her and either her arm or shoulder had been broken, but it was the price she was going to have to pay for causing this situation. If she was lucky, that was all the next few minutes were going to cost her.

Salmon was unhurt, but with his body entangled with Adrianna's and his weapon out of commission, he wasn't an immediate threat. Therefore I focused my attention on the four men in front of me. The fight had been going on for 1.8 seconds. I estimated I had another 2.5 seconds before the man on the balcony with the other dangerous rifle would open fire. So I had that much time to acquire one of weapons of these men and take him out first. It didn't leave time for finesse or compassion.

From my position on the floor next to Adrianna, I leapt forward in a shallow dive staying only inches above the floor. Holding my weapon out to the right side of my body, I dove behind the four men who were my targets to make myself as difficult to hit as possible for the gunman on the balcony. As I swept by, the incandescent plasma of the lightsaber sheared through the legs of the first three men at mid-calve height. And just like a lumberjack in a virgin old growth forest, I angled the blade up at a twenty-seven degree angle to force their bodies to collapse backwards so their guns would end up closer to my position.

The stink of burning flesh filled my human nostrils long before their screams began, as the forty-eight hundred degree beam cauterized all their nearby nerve endings. What had happened to them didn't begin to sink in until they started hitting the ground. And with their feet still standing where they had been like a row of toy soldiers, their guns were instantly forgotten as they began to scream in unison.

Ignoring the fourth gunman near me and the two on the other side of where Salmon and Adrianna still lay in a heap, I held the lightsaber between me and the man on the balcony while I reached out with my left hand for the nearest gun. With the intensely bright light of the saber almost directly in front of my face, I had to step down the light receptor circuitry in my visual array until it was like looking at the world through a pair of welder's goggles. Therefore I was forced to depend almost entirely on my short range radar in place of my normal vision. And with most of my attention focused on the man with the M82A1, I was left to grope almost blindly for the gun.

My hand had just closed on the grip of the MAC-10 when I detected the gunman's finger beginning to twitch on the trigger. I made one final triangulation and moved the lightsaber 0.32 inches to the left just as the projectile exploded from the barrel of his weapon. It would have been nice if life was like the movies and I could have deflected his shot back at him or into one of his cohorts, but it was good enough that the plasma of the lightsaber vaporized the bullet before it passed through the 3.5 inch thickness of the beam.

Unfortunately, I don't have access to 'The Force' and couldn't perfectly predict when he was going to shoot or exactly where he would aim, so the odds of stopping subsequent shots with the lightsaber decreased dramatically. Therefore hoping he wouldn't switch to full auto-fire mode, I swept the lightsaber off to my side to clear my vision as I brought up the MAC-10 with my left hand. Using my thumb to slide the selector to 'single fire' mode, as I didn't know how many opponents I would have to take down with this single clip, I quickly fired two rounds into the center of the man's chest. Then uncertain if he was wearing a vest and adjusting for the accuracy of this particular weapon which had hit the man two inches to the left and one inch lower than my aim point, I put a third round through his right eye for good measure.

In the 4.8 seconds I spent dealing with my most dangerous opponent the remaining effective gunmen at this end of the ballroom had finally overcome the shock caused by my abrupt attack with its wholly unexpected nature and had begun firing at me. Rounds were hitting me, the floor around me, and the three men cut down by the lightsaber. The impacts jarred my body and gun arm such that it took me four shots rather than two to finish off the other two men up on the balcony. Since they could reach the only weapon that could seriously hurt me, they had to be dealt with first.

From where I was still laying on my back, I swiveled my aim to the one opponent still standing near me. A quick shot between his Adam's apple and his chin took him down. Then I rolled back to my feet facing the two gunmen beyond where Salmon and Adrianna still lay.

A quick glance showed most of the crowd had ducked down and were huddling on the floor cradling their heads in an attempt to make themselves the smallest targets possible, which left the remaining gunmen at the far end of the room clearly visible. For the benefit of this particular audience I started advancing on the two remaining gunmen here at the entrance with my most stoic terminator expression adorning my face. The two men continued to fire, hitting me repeatedly in the chest, and I let them continue for a couple of seconds in hopes of intimidating the gunmen into eventually giving up without a fight that might result in shots fired into the crowd.

As I moved towards the two remaining opponents, I used the lightsaber to silence the three writhing, screaming men lying at my feet. As they saw the lightsaber effortlessly rip through the torsos of the dying men and saw how their weapons' numerous hits on my body had no noticeable effect, their shooting faltered to a halt.

In the sudden silence, I looked at the two men and slowly lifted the MAC-10 I had been holding down at my side and pointed it in their direction. "Drop your weapons now, if you want to live."

Both men briskly tossed their weapons away and they went clattering down the steps onto the main part of the ballroom floor.

I strode forward to where Salmon was carefully clambering back to his feet while trying to hold his hands above his head.

"Please. Please. Please." He repeated in a pathetic manner.

The lightsaber had five seconds remaining on its charge when I reached Salmon. "I only give humans one chance and you wasted it," I snarled in a loud voice to ensure it would carry to the men at the far end of the room. Then in a quieter voice I continued, "take it like a man."

I swept the lightsaber through a fast, hard arc. It burned through his left arm and shoulder before coming out on the far side of his neck. As his severed head went spinning up into the air, the follow-through stroke vaporized his right hand. I released my grip on the MAC-10 and grabbed his head by the hair with my left hand as it began to descend and before his lifeless body crashed back down on top of Adrianna.

I turned towards the gunmen at the far end of the room and held his head aloft, as the lightsaber pulsed once and then went out.

"This is YOUR one chance. Drop your weapons now," I said in a clear ringing voice. "If you make me fire up my lightsaber again, I guarantee you will all end up like this."

It took less than three seconds for the first man to make his decision and toss down his weapon. In four more seconds all the others had followed suit. Almost before the last gun had hit the ground, Lisa rose to her feet from her position at the edge of the crowd, her Glock firmly pointed in their direction.

The next motion I saw was from the floor near the steps. David Silver had apparently been crawling across the floor in an attempt to reach John and Naomi. Now he grabbed up one of the MAC-10s that had been tossed down there and as he rose to his feet he pointed it towards the men in the back.

"Hands behind your necks and then down on your knees," he commanded.

As he stood there gun in hand, I was once more reminded of Derek Reese. And then for just an instant a very old memory flashed through my mind. Most of my old memories had been wiped when John, future John, had reprogrammed me, but with a holographic memory system it is virtually impossible to eliminate every single fragment without destroying its functionality. Now a brief fragment from when I was a nearly mindless Skynet minion surfaced. Derek was tied to a chair and I was torturing him for information. I no longer have any idea what information I was seeking or if I was successful, I just have a single image of a battered, damaged Derek staring me defiantly in the face with an expression of inner strength not unlike what I saw on David Silver at the moment.

Then the memory was gone and I was left with the 'here and now' to deal with. I had just terminated eight drug dealers in front of a crowd of people in about as vicious a manner as was possible in twenty-one seconds. I had taken at least a dozen bullet hits to the body that would be impossible to explain and I had been using a lightsaber to devastating effect. If I was still here when the authorities arrived, it was unlikely I would be able to extricate myself without another firefight. It was definitely time to go.

"David?" I asked, as I descended the four steps back to the main level of the ballroom.

He glanced quickly at me, but his gun hand never wavered, "Yeah?"

"Can you hold these men until the cops arrive? It's best if I wasn't here."

"Yeah, I understand," he answered. Then a small smile flickered across his face. "Are we still on for tennis in the morning?"

I smiled at his mundane question. "I'm afraid not. What I came to Beverly Hills to accomplish is done. It is time for me to move on."

He gave a small calm nod of acknowledgement. The giant revelation that I was a robot from the future he seemed to take perfectly in stride. It reminded me again of the Derek Reese I had known in previous timelines.

"Be safe," was all he finally said before starting to weave a path through the still prostrate crowd towards the kneeling men at the back of the grand ballroom.

Part 4

In the end Naomi, Lisa, and Paul had walked out of the ballroom with me and 'my' invisible John and Sarah. As Naomi's John had theorized, Ty and Annie must have been in a room somewhere else in the hotel. There hadn't been time to search for them, so I never had a chance to say goodbye to my grandson or warn Annie about my worries about his playboy nature – not that I would've explained to her the maternal aspects of my concern.

However Lisa and I did use the thirty minute hike to the Century City Hospital, where the nearest time displacement machine was hidden in a subbasement storage room, to bring Paul up to speed about me and my relationship to Lisa. Like with Naomi and Adrianna after our first encounter with Salmon, he had the benefit of seeing me in action and witnessing my ability to be shot numerous times with no more serious effect than a blouse soaked with blood from where the bullets had penetrated the outer layer of my skin before being stopped by my sub-dermal nanofiber layer.

We were a subdued group by the time we reached the hospital. It was just sinking in with Lisa that after a mere four days with her I was leaving again and that it was unlikely I would ever return.

As we reached the main entrance to the hospital, where I slipped on Paul's suit coat to hide the blood-soaked nature of my clothing, I spotted an ambulance dropping Adrianna off at the Emergency Entrance. Part of me wanted to go see how she was doing because not everything that had happened had been her fault. But the risk of someone among all the hustle and bustle down there noticing the current state of my clothing was too high. I just had to hope everything would turn out okay for her and that she would get the help she needed to get past her drug problems.

The route to the secret storeroom had been engraved in my memory since the long ago time I had spent in the nineteen sixties. Well, a long ago forty years for Lisa, it had only been a couple of months from my perspective, but in some ways it felt a lot longer. I guess the thought of leaving Lisa was taking its toll on me, too. Not that it was nearly the same. In whatever time period or timeline I ended up in next, one of my top priorities would be tracking her back down. I had seen her as a child and I had seen her as a mature adult and mother. Next time I might see her somewhere in between. At least our relationship would never be boring.

We traversed three corridors and descended two flights of stairs before reaching the storeroom with the false back wall. I hadn't detected anyone on this level and since it would take less than twenty minutes to setup the equipment and be gone, I didn't bother to be gentle while creating a passage through the wall. In some ways it felt good to be able to focus my energies on an inanimate object like a wall rather than on hurting or killing people.

Once inside the room, I quickly set about getting the equipment out of the packing crates and organized for use. Some of the simpler tasks I was able to delegate to the others and I think they appreciated having something to do to fill the time rather than simply standing around and waiting.

Paul and Naomi were over on the other side of the room prying open wooden packing crates with crowbars while Lisa was helping me assemble the power supply components.

"Mom," began Lisa quietly with a small catch in her voice. "Do you really have to go right now? Can't you stay for at least a few days? I have waited so long to find you."

I shook my head. "Too many people saw what I did at the party. The cops will be at your house shortly, if they aren't already there waiting for you. I hate to leave in the middle of this mess, but you'll have an easier time without me."

"But," began Lisa and I could see tears running down her face now. "But we could go into hiding, at least for awhile. I have been prepared for this day for a long time. I have enough cash stashed away to take care of us for several years."

I shook my head again. "Lisa, if it was just me, I would. But it's not just me. It's John and Sarah - the John and Sarah of my previous timeline. I found them at the party, well, actually they found me."

"They're here?" exclaimed Lisa in almost a loud enough voice to attracted Paul and Naomi's attention from across the room. "But how can you leave without them?"

"I'm not leaving without them. They are right here in the room," I answered. I glanced over to where John was standing barely three feet away and avidly staring at Lisa. At least I had had several days with her. He had barely seen her before the walk from the hotel.

Lisa's gaze flicked around the room and then returned to me. Before she even asked the obvious question, I jumped in with the answer.

"They are invisible to everyone except for me. When we made the last time jump, a nuke went off only a fraction of a second earlier. I suspect the bomb's radiation screwed up the time displacement machine's hardware or software. John and Sarah ended up in this strange limbo state. I'm not sure why I came through normally while they did not, but I think something related to the glitch or that fact we were from the same timeline is why I can still see them.

"The only solution we could think of to restore them to normal is to go through another time bubble. We don't know if the risks increase the longer we wait, but I don't want to chance it," I concluded.

Lisa's eyes swept around the room again in the vain attempt to spot them, as though the sudden knowledge that they were here would miraculously make it possible. Then with a sigh she turned her attention back to me.

"I wish I could see Dad and talk to him for at least a little while."

I nodded to her. Then I glanced at John and saw him wiping one sleeve at the corner of his eyes. In that moment it suddenly felt like the three of us were a family again. And even though he didn't say it out loud, I knew what he would like to say.

"Lisa, John asked me to tell you how proud he is of you and how happy he is at seeing the life you have made for yourself without any help from us," I paused to pull my daughter into a hug. "And I hope you know I feel exactly the same way."

Lisa held the hug for twelve seconds before slowly stepping back. As she wiped at her eyes, she said, "Well, I suppose we better get back to work so you can go before some new problem rears its ugly head."

I felt my own human eyes fill with tears and took a moment to wipe them before nodding and getting back to work assembling the equipment.

Except for my quiet instructions, we worked in silence for the next eleven minutes twenty-three seconds. I had just finished assembling the control panel and had initiated the system's self-check cycle when Naomi joined me.

"Cam, I'm sorry about the 'stupid robot' comment I made back when we were confronting Adrianna and those gangsters. Addy had seriously pissed me off and I am afraid my mouth was running a lot faster than my brain. Will you forgive me, please?"

"Yes, Naomi, I'll forgive you," I answered. "And besides you aren't that wrong. I am a robot and I have done some pretty stupid things. Just look at this whole mess at the ballroom. It isn't really Adrianna's fault. Oh, she may have been forced to lead Salmon and his men to the party, but if I hadn't stupidly let Salmon survive the encounter the other night at the warehouse, we wouldn't have ended up with a room full of gunmen."

I put my arm around Naomi's shoulder before continuing. "But look on the bright side, we all survived and only drug-dealing scum paid the ultimate price."

"Perhaps that's the bright side for you," answered Naomi. "But I am not seeing the bright side for me." Naomi paused to shake her head. Then she took a long, slow breath and looked directly in my eyes. "My whole life is a mess and I really hate it." Then her expression hardened and her eyes seemed to change from their normal light blue to a determined darker shade.

"Cam, I hate my parents for dragging me through their divorce. I hate my long-time best friend for being a drug-addicted whore. I hate my boyfriend for sneaking around behind my back with my 'supposed' best friend. Frankly, I simply hate my whole life," stated Naomi in a surprisingly calm voice. Then she dropped her bomb shell. "I have been thinking about it ever since we left the hotel. Cam, can I come with you?"

I stared at her for fourteen long seconds as my whole neural network seemed to freeze up at this unexpected request. Then my brain kicked back into gear and I spent another 3.8 seconds coming up with a list of reasons why she shouldn't accompany me.

"Naomi," I began while slowly shaking my head. "You don't understand what my life is like. You have seen what I am capable of. The last timeline I was in was filled with tens of thousands of machines like me only they were all the enemy and would have focused one hundred percent of their attention on trying to kill me and my friends, if they had found us. As it was, the twelve hours we spent there was one endless battle and one of my companions died. There's no guarantee where I end up next won't be as bad or worse. Do you really want a life where at any moment you could find yourself injured or dead?"

I thought I saw her waver, so I continued my argument from another angle. "And it's not just the danger you will face if you go with me. You are needed here. I know you are angry with her at the moment, but Adrianna is your friend and she needs you. She needs someone strong like you to help her beat her problems."

My eyes flicked over to 'my' John for a moment, before I continued. "And then there's John. I have known him in other timelines and in all of them he was destined to play an important role in the survival of mankind in the battle against the machines. The machines don't seem to be present in your world, but that could change at any moment and John needs to be prepared. However the soft, easy life he has here is not the preparation he needs. Since you and Lisa are the only ones who know the truth, it is up to you to get him ready. And you can't do that if you come with me."

Naomi stared at me for a minute and then started to laugh. "John Silver, the savior of mankind? If that's true, the world is royally screwed."

I shrugged. After a couple of days around him, my opinion of John Silver wasn't a lot higher. "People can change – particularly if there is someone to give them an occasional shove. And since you know what might be coming, that person needs to be you."

Then since she was still watching me I did a deliberate scan down her body from her perfectly coiffed hair to her three thousand dollar metallic gold mini-dress to her five hundred dollar shoes. Looking back up into her eyes, I used my biggest weapon to convince her that her place was in this timeline. "Besides Naomi, before arriving in this timeline I spent a lot more time cleaning weapons then worrying about my appearance. And I have been in eight different timelines and this is the first where I haven't shopped in thrift stores. Are you really prepared for a life where all your shopping is done in either gun stores or pawn shops or Wal-Mart?"

She actually appeared to experience a small involuntarily shudder at the mere mention of Wal-Mart.

"Wal-Mart? You're kidding, right?" she asked with a frown. When I shook my head, she took a half step back. "Okay, maybe going with you was a crazy idea."

I smiled at her. A large part of me was happy at her decision. She was a good person and deserved a chance at a normal life, if life in Beverly Hills could be considered normal. But I had to admit at least a small part of me wished she was going along. She was the first true friend I had who wasn't part of the battle against Skynet. It had been fun having someone to talk to about trivial things like fashion, music, and art.

Just then a green light on the control panel glowed to life indicating the time displacement equipment was fully operational. Seeing no value, only increased risk, in postponing the inevitable, I quickly entered the destination coordinates and then turned to the five other occupants of the room.

"It's time," I stated, as I pulled Naomi into a final hug.

"I'm going to miss you," I whispered quietly, as I gave her a second squeeze before releasing her. She nodded, seemingly at a loss for words. She swept her thick tangle of blonde curls away from her face before moving her hand to rub at her tear-filled eyes.

As I turned away from Naomi, I caught sight of John and Sarah in the corner of my eye. Sarah gave me a brief nod as they moved to the center of the room where the time bubble would appear. Obviously they intended to give me a moment alone with Lisa and Paul.

Paul may have been Lisa's husband for almost twenty years, but we had only known each other for a few hours and he had only known my secret for a few minutes. I considered pulling him into a hug, too, but in the end settled for a firm handshake. And even as we shook hands, I could see the doubt creeping into his expression. Oh, he had witnessed the events back at the ballroom and could probably accept that I was a machine from the future. Well, at least for the moment, doubtlessly in a few months or years he would begin to question his memories of tonight.

But the hard part, that I am sure he was having the most problems accepting even at this moment, had to be the fact that I was Lisa's mother. The general concept of human-looking machines had to be easier to swallow than the specifics that your spouse's long departed parent was in fact some half human-half machine hybrid who looked like a high school teenager. I mean his parents had to be in their upper sixties and yet his wife's mother looked like her daughter. How impossible would that be to comprehend with less than an hour's exposure?

"Paul," I began, feeling the need to say something. "I am glad I had the opportunity to meet you and your son. It has been gratifying to see how well my daughter's life has turned out and from everything she has told me, you are a big part of the reason. It almost makes me glad that our lives took different paths when she was young. I mean tonight you have seen a hint of what my life is like. And sadly, by my standards, today was a 'good' day, as no one I truly care about was seriously hurt or killed."

I lowered my voice before continuing. "Please take good care of Lisa. She deserves so much more out of life than I was ever able to give her."

Paul nodded and then impulsively pulled me into a quick hug. "I will," he promised.

After releasing me, Paul took a step back and I turned to Lisa. Quickly she pulled me into a tight hug and for just a moment I thought she was going to lift my full 400 lb body off the floor.

"Mom, I'm going to miss you," she began. "Is there any chance you will return?"

The odds struck me as extremely small, but not impossible. And with the crazy twisted multiverse we inhabit, I calculated the odds were actually slightly higher that some alternate version of me might make some future visit to this timeline.

"I don't know," I stated truthfully. "But I have experienced so many impossible or at least highly improbable things since I first traveled downtime from the future I would 'never say never'. However I will admit the odds seem low."

Lisa nodded, as though this was the answer she expected.

"Lisa, it has been wonderful to see you and to see what life is like in a world without Skynet. Of course, my biggest fear is that someday the machines will rear their ugly heads here, too, and I won't be around to help." My thoughts turned back to my conversation with Naomi about John Silver. He didn't seem to be on the path to be ready if this world needed him. But perhaps this world had another option in my grandson, Ty. Oh, at the moment he wasn't an obviously better choice than John, but he did have at least of few of my special gifts and Lisa did have the potential of guiding him in the way Sarah had guided John in my previous timelines.

"In case the machines ever do show up here, someone needs to be prepared. And I think that someone needs to be Ty," I stated.

Lisa looked at me for a moment and suddenly I felt an old connection rekindle between us. She held my gaze and then nodded.

"I understand, Mom. I know I have given him a lot of freedom, but he needed to experience the good things in life to know what he might one day be called on to fight for. But the events tonight have driven home, at least for me, that it is time to start preparing in case the worst should happen." Lisa paused to run her fingers through my hair one last time as she had so often done as a little girl. "Trust me, Mom. I will have us ready, if the day ever comes."

I felt myself smile as I pulled her into a final hug. I suddenly had a much better feeling that everything would be okay in this timeline once I was gone.

Our final hug lasted sixteen seconds and then once we had separated, there was no reason to delay any longer. I reached over and flipped the switch which would initiate the time jump after a ten second delay. I walked quickly over to the center of the room and took my place next to 'my' Sarah and John.

The blue shimmer of the time bubble began to materialize around us right on schedule. From previous experience I knew the time jump would occur 2.3 seconds after I first detected the field's glow. I was just raising my hand in a final farewell gesture when Naomi darted forward and took her place beside me.

"I have to do this," she said as the time bubble went fully opaque.

It was too late for me to do anything about it or even reply to her comment. In the final milliseconds before the field temporarily turned my neural network to mush, I contemplated the shock Naomi was in for if the time jump succeeded in restoring the others to the 'real' world, and she found herself in a naked pile with a completely different John and Sarah. Just to see the expression on her face might make the whole trip worthwhile!

The End

Author's Note

Well, there you have it. My vision of what Cameron's life in the world of 90210 would be like. As always, I would appreciate hearing what you think about this story. (Hint, hint) I had a lot of fun writing it and could have easily extended it a lot further, as there are many more things I wouldn't mind exploring, but there are also a lot of other things I would like to write about and I never seemed to have as much time to write as I would like. So, this seemed like a good spot to stop the 90210 storyline and move on to other things.

Thoughts about another sequel to 1963 . . . .

Between watching the new 90210 TV show and writing this story, there was something about the Naomi character that attracted me, similar to the way Cameron in Terminator and Alicia in Smallville do. When I started this story I intended this to be one of several stand-alone sequels to 1963, which could be read in any order. But as I was writing this final chapter, I decided it might be fun to bring Naomi along for future stories and turn future stories into sequels in the same arc rather than parallel stories.

I think throwing Naomi into the mix will be sort of like Dr. Who and his companions. He is this technical wiz, but the companions are usually just normal people thrown into extraordinary circumstances so the audience has somebody to empathize with, as well as someone to ask the 'dumb' questions the audience needs answered to understand what is going on.

So I thought it might be fun to throw a Beverly Hills party-girl into this small band of warriors and see what happens. Plus it also seemed like it would be fun to explore a Cameron-John-Naomi triangle as Naomi learns to deal with someone who looks just like her old boyfriend, but has a completely different background and personality.

At the moment I am thinking the next story will be a variation of them battling Skynet on the moon I had mentioned in the last chapter of the previous story. However I think I am going to set the story in 1979 rather than 1977. By using 1979, the Lisa of that timeline will be 16, Naomi will be 16, John will be 16, and Cameron will be pretending to be 16 – which makes it more interesting than 1977.

This cross-over story with 90210 was a lot of fun to write and based on people's comments the unexpectedness of this mash-up seemed to be appreciated. So I think the next story is also going to be another cross-over, although probably even more obscure.

Way back in 1970, British TV did one season of a sci-fi show called UFO. If you have netflix, just type UFO in their search field and it should be the first hit. You will be able to see the cover art and story synopsis (and if you are really inspired, you could even rent it!)

The show was set in the distant future year of 1980 and involved a secret organization (with its headquarters buried below a British movie studio) battling alien invaders. Now if you aren't old enough to remember 1970, when this show was created, you may not understand how things on this show like the existence of many large moon-based operations by multiple countries and corporations felt entirely possible a mere ten years in the future. But in 1970 it had been less than ten years since the first person had gone into space and they had already landed a man on the moon. I think if you asked people in 1970 which was more likely: the space travel of this show in ten years or mankind not sending anyone back to the moon for more than 50 years, they would have all voted that events in the show were more likely. What has happened with space travel in the last few decades seems to be almost 'stranger than fiction'.

Anyway, as I said, this show was done in 1970 and tried to extrapolate things to 1980. And not only did they try to extrapolate technology, but also everything else. It feels so anachronistic, at least to a modern American, to see all the characters sitting around their offices smoking cigars and drinking hard liquor. And then there are the fashions. 1970 England was still in the whole 'mod' scene and this show is a lot like Austin Powers on steroids – the men all wear turtlenecks and Nehru jackets and the women are all in short, short skirts. But my favorite bit was always the women who manned the secret organization's moon operations. They dressed in these shiny metallic jumpsuits and all wore matching purple wigs. I think it would be a lot of fun to see Sarah, Cameron, Naomi, and Lisa forced to wear the purple wigs and skin-tight spacesuits to blend in!

I still have to figure out the 'hook' to tie these two stories together into a seamless whole, but it simply feels like it will be a lot of fun if I can make it work.

Anyone have any thoughts about this story idea? Good, bad, or indifferent?

Also are there any preferences on the style of the story? Should I again do it from Cameron's perspective like this story or should I revert back to the third person style of the first story? I am almost tempted to tell it from Naomi's perspective, but I am not certain how many people, besides me, would really appreciate a terminator story from her point of view.

I hope you are having a great day and I would enjoy hearing from you,

Duane

Duane


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